Hyderabad: The fallout from “Nara Hamara, TDP Hamara” blunder, coupled with ex-Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu’s turbulent political history has seemingly returned to haunt him. Moreover, the TDP’s alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the coming AP Assembly and Lok Sabha elections has also given the ruling YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) ammo to target him about the TDP’s attitude towards the Muslim community.
In the run up to the upcoming elections, Kurnool MLA MA Hafeez Khan recently reminded the Muslims of AP of the infamous incident on August 31, 2018, in Guntur. Eight Muslim youngsters, who had come to attend a ‘Nara hamara‘ meeting were arrested on sedition charges and taken from police station to police station for four days. They were allegedly tortured by the police.
The youngsters were holding placards asking Naidu why it took 4.5 years for him to ‘remember’ Muslims. They were arrested for attempting to hold him accountable, demanding answers from him over his contribution towards the welfare of the community. Muslims across the state had come to attend that meeting.
“The mask of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has been removed. Chandrababu is showing hypocritical love for Muslim minorities. The TDP spoke to the BJP leaders in the alliance that it wanted to talk to. It has made the security of minorities questionable,” Khan commented.
“There are comments by BJP leaders that scare the minorities. TDP always looks down upon minorities. During the TDP regime, Muslims were not given any support till the end,” he stated. He questioned why there was not a single minister from the Muslim minorities during the TDP regime under Naidu.
Muslim organisations in Andhra Pradesh (AP) have already started a huge social media campaign, reaching out to every Muslim in the state, to caution them about the repercussions of NDA forming the government at the Centre again.
As per the 2011 Census, 80.82 lakh Muslims were living in AP, which is 9.56 per cent of the total population. While the community was not polarised until 2014, the events that unfolded later, beginning with TDP’s alliance with BJP earlier, its exit from NDA in 2018, and now a “ghar wapsi” again during the 2024 general elections have not gone well with Muslims, which have been largely supporting YSRCP in the last assembly elections.
Lal Ahmed Ghouse, general secretary of AP Muslim protection committee, has recently given a call to Muslims to vote against the NDA alliance partners in AP, declaring that any party allying with BJP will be treated as anti-Muslim.
There has been a WhatsApp campaign with the title “Wake up Muslim brothers!” which has tried to raise the conscience of Muslims in AP, by making them wary of the consequences of voting for “a communal unholy alliance,” cautioning the brotherhood, that a vote for TSP will be a vote for the communal BJP.
The WhatsApp campaign has been warning the Muslims that if the NDA alliance wins, laws like CAA, the uniform civil code, NRC, and NPR will be implemented by the Centre.
However, there is no reason to believe that the Muslim vote will be polarized so much that it would dent TDP’s election prospects. YSRCP voting in favour of CAA, and AP chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy maintaining cordial relations with the Centre, has created a trust deficit in the Muslims against YSRCP.
However, Hafeez Khan stated that the YSRCP hasn’t accepted the CAA rules in its current form and that the party has sought amendments to the Act. During a recent election campaign, Naidu assured that he would take total responsibility for ensuring “full security” to the Muslims and asked the people not to get carried away by this propaganda against TDP.
He made these statements during an election campaign in Madanapalle of Chittoor district, standing in support of alliance partner BJP’s candidate former chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, who was his political rival in the erstwhile AP when Congress was in power between 2004 and 2014.
The most recent exit of TDP from NDA was in 2018, when the Centre didn’t grant special status to AP. During the 2019 general elections, Naidu even called Modi “a terrorist” and had made certain remarks against the prime minister’s personal life. TDP’s relations with NDA alliance had soured after the 2002 Godhra riots, when the prime demand of TDP was the replacement of Narendra Modi from the Gurajat CM post.
This time around, the “Nara Hamara” has come back to bite Naidu, just like ‘backstabbing the mama’ allegations. The TDP chief has been facing that phrase ever since he became the chief minister first by ousting TDP founder NT Rama Rao in the infamous “Viceroy Coup” on August 26, 1995.
While there are no permanent friends or enemies in politics, gaining the trust of Muslims is certainly going to be a difficult task for both TDP and YSRCP in the coming elections in AP. Whether Muslims will find an alternative, and how much the vote bank could tilt the result in favour of either one of these parties, is something that has to be seen.
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