Hyderabad: The Telangana Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on June 24 termed the Rs 1 lakh assistance scheme for minorities announced by BRS recently as a ‘fraud’ and an attempt to woo Muslims ahead of the state elections.
Addressing the media, party leader Marri Shashidhar Reddy said that the decision was highly condemnable. “This has been done in view of the election at the end of 2023. It is nothing more than electoral bribing and something the Election Commission should take note of to prevent undue and unjust electoral advantage,” he remarked.
Reddy also called chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao ‘a habitual fraudster’.
The Telangana government on June 23 announced the implementation of the minorities’ economic support scheme on the same lines as the BC assistance scheme and issued government order – 78, citing the necessary guidelines for the minorities’ economic support scheme that it is going to be implemented.
“The so-called BC Bandhu is grossly unfair and selective and was an election gimmick. Even though the GO dates for receiving applications, processing them, and the date of disbursal were mentioned, there is transparency about its implementation. In this GO 78, no dates have been specified for various steps to be taken till disbursal. This further confirms the lack of commitment to minority welfare as amply demonstrated by the track record,” he alleged.
Reddy lashes out at AIMIM
Reddy while questioning the track record of the BRS government, asked whether it did anything beyond spending money on Ramzan gifts and food. “Even that has gone unaudited,” he added.
“The State Minorities Finance Corporation was dead for about 4 years. There was not even a body appointed. Prior to that, there were 2.5 lakh applications for assistance. The is the fate of those applications? No one wants to talk about them. Not even AIMIM, the so-called champions of Muslims,” he said.
“In view of the elections in 2023, the Corporation was constituted and applications were called for upto March 31, 2023. About 1.2 lakh new applications were received. Beneficiaries were to be selected by lottery. Now GO 78 states that these applications of last year, i.e. 2022-23 will be considered in 2023-24. They are not calling for any fresh applications,” he further said.
Reddy also stated that there was an allocation of Rs 50 crores and an additional amount of Rs 70 crores was also earmarked. “Was all this amount spent on Ramzan goodies? Nobody is able to tell us where the whole amount has gone,” he remarked.
Stating that the BRS has now called applications from Christians, he asked if the BRS government doesn’t recognise Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists as minorities.
