Karimnagar/Gajwel/Medak/Hyderabad: Because the Telangana election seems to go right down to the wire, one part whose votes are anticipated to tilt the stability within the Congress or Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s favour are the Muslims.
In varied opinion polls, the 2 events have emerged because the favourites within the polls to be held Thursday.
On condition that the Hyderabad-based All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) can also be vying for a similar pie, it’s anyone’s guess which method the minority vote flows. Opinion about these three events range inside households and non secular our bodies inside the group in addition to from constituency to constituency.
Awaiting passengers, close to Hyderabad’s Nampally railway station, an AIMIM stronghold, auto-driver Mohd. Waseem, 45, says votes in his household are break up between Congress and Asaduddin Owaisi’s celebration.
In Telangana Chief Minister Okay. Chandrasekhar Rao’s meeting turf Gajwel, Mohd. Yousuf Ali, 71, suspects KCR and BJP are hand-in-glove. “Votes for the BRS will help the BJP.”
“As Muslims, we have had no problem with KCR, but now we suspect he is working hand-in-glove with the BJP. When his daughter K. Kavitha was not arrested (in the alleged Delhi liquor scam), we smelt something fishy since all others including big leaders from AAP were arrested,” Yousuf contends.
His pal Mazar Ali, 53, although just isn’t on the identical web page.
Such vote break up eventualities are what the BJP is hoping to work to its favour in some constituencies equivalent to Karimnagar when the ballot outcomes are out on 3 December. Former BJP state chief and sitting MP Bandi Sanjay is pitted in opposition to BRS minister and sitting MLA Gangula Kamalakar on this constituency. Purumalla Srinivas is the Congress candidate. All three are from the identical group Munnuru Kapu, which is categorised as backward.
Exiting Karimnagar’s Aslami Masjid after the night prayers, Mohd. Hussain, who’s into car gross sales, says he’s disillusioned with Kamalakar. The 25-year-old flags the issue of unemployment, “having voted for BRS last time.”
Mohd. Shafiuddin, the mosque imam and proprietor of the Al Zaid Perfume subsequent door, is at pains explaining the secular credentials of the Congress. Nevertheless, Shaik Saleem and one other helper within the ittar store are buoyant, guaranteeing the BRS win within the city seat “with AIMIM support”.
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Essential minority votes
Muslims kind about 13 % of Telangana’s inhabitants. Their highest focus is in Outdated Hyderabad, the place the AIMIM retains all of the seven meeting segments, and the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat of Owaisi.
Whereas the AIMIM is anticipated to retain Charminar, Chandrayangutta, Malakpet, Karwan, Yakutpura, Bahadurpura and Nampally, it’s fielding candidates in two extra Hyderabad metropolis segments – Jubilee Hills and Rajendranagar – this time. In different constituencies, Owaisi’s celebration has declared its assist to KCR.
The AIMIM has focused Rajendranagar, adjoining its stronghold, for a while due to the swelling Muslim vote there. As for Jubilee Hills, Congress candidate Mohd. Azharuddin alleges the AIMIM is a vote-cutter serving to the BRS.
Of the whole 119 seats, Muslim votes are handled as decisive — relying on the native equations — in one other 20-25 seats. In 2018, a majority of those segments went to the BRS.
Newest traits and political observations present a serious chunk of Muslim vote as drifting away from the ruling celebration. Muslim spiritual organisations too seem divided, with some backing the Congress and others the BRS.
Final week, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind launched a listing declaring its assist not as a complete however to totally different events’ meeting segment-wise — the Congress in 69 seats, the BRS in 41, the AIMIM in 7, and the BSP and the Left in 1 every.
The Congress in Telangana, its leaders say, managed to convey the message to the group that “the BRS was working with the BJP and every vote for KCR bolsters the BJP at the centre.”
“People who believe in safeguarding democracy and the Constitution, who want to see the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb (syncretic culture) survive in the country, will go against the BJP and the BRS,” Congress Rajya Sabha MP and its nationwide spokesperson Syed Naseer Hussain tells ThePrint.
As Rahul Gandhi has in his election rallies dubbed the BRS because the “BJP Rishtedaar Samiti”, the BRS and its chief are on an overdrive to counter the narrative of damaging their Muslim vote financial institution. KCR has reportedly addressed a whopping 96 public conferences, primarily concentrating on the Congress and its prime ministers like Indira Gandhi.
“Under whose watch the Babri Masjid was demolished? If you are secular, your deeds should reflect it,” KCR thundered two weeks in the past in Nizamabad. He accused the Congress of treating the Muslims solely as a vote-bank and made obscure references to Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Mohabbat ki Dukaan’ comment.
In his rallies in different Muslim affect segments too, KCR is reaching out to the group, saying “Hindus and Muslims are my two eyes.”
“Communal riots, curfews were the order of the day during the Congress rule (of the nineties). There have been none here since 2014. We have spent Rs 12,000 crore on minority welfare,” he stated.
“There is a fanatic party which keeps thinking of digging up masjids, dargahs to stoke (communal) fires,” KCR thundered, attacking the BJP in rallies in seats close to to Hyderabad on Monday, the penultimate day of the ballot marketing campaign.
Repeat of Karnataka impact?
Not everyone seems to be satisfied with the Congress makes an attempt to duplicate its Karnataka technique for drawing again the Muslims, a big chunk of which was cornered by KCR within the final two elections.
Mohd. Moulana, an auto driver in Medak, is apprehensive over the celebration assure of free RTC bus rides to ladies.
“If all women are given free bus rides, who will travel in my auto rickshaw? I will become jobless. We have seen the plight of auto drivers in Karnataka after the Congress guarantees were implemented there,” Moulana tells ThePrint.
“The KCR government has given us insurance, waived road taxes, and is providing Rs 1 lakh in Shaadi Mubarak (the Muslim version of Kalyana Lakshmi scheme providing financial assistance to poor families for the wedding of their daughters). We have no faith that the Congress will implement their guarantees,” the auto driver says.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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