Hyderabad: Union home minster Amit Shah said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will end the 4% job reservations for Muslims in Telangana if his party comes to power again at the Centre after winning the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. Shah added that the reservation will be given to Backward Classes (BC), Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (S) communities instead.
However, it may be noted that the reservations for Muslims in Telangana is not separate, but part only part of the BC reservation quota. Amit Shah’s words can easily let anyone think that Muslims have a separate religious reservation when that is not the case in Telangana.
Addressing a public meeting in Siddipet in support of BJP Medak candidate M Raghunandan Rao on Thursday, Amit Shah accused the Congress of making Telangana the “ATM” of Delhi, indirectly stating that the grand old party’s leadership was using the state for its electioneering.
BJP’s Raghunandan Rao, who had won the Dubbaka Assembly seat in a by-election earlier, lost his seat to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) by over 50,000 votes. He is one of the party’s known faces, including others like Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay and Secunderabad MP (current BJP Telangana chief) Kishan Reddy, who is contesting as a candidate in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in the state that will be held next month.
During his rally at Siddipet, Amit Shah alleged that the current Congress government in Telangana is not investigating into alleged corruption charges against the BRS in the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme. He also went into the usual BJP rhetoric linking the BRS and Congress to the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM).
“Congress and BRS are scared of the Majlis (AIMIM), but we aren’t. We will officially celebrate September 17 as Telangana Liberation Day. All-round development of Telangana is only possible if BJP is in power at the Centre,” stated Amit Shah. In the past, he had accused the BRS government of being controlled or run (indirectly) by the BRS, given that both the parties had always maintained they were friendly” with each other.
