Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has said that if voted to power in Maharashtra, Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) will discuss providing reservation for Muslims.
Revanth Reddy, who campaigned for Congress candidates in Maharashtra, strongly favoured reservation for Muslims. “It is the responsibility of Congress party to do justice to poor and the needy,” he said.
Congress is a constituent of MVA, which is hoping to come back to power in Maharashtra. The polling was underway on Wednesday (November 20) for elections to 288-member Assembly.
The Congress party has fielded 101 candidates, Shiv Sena (UBT) 95, and NCP (SP) has put up 86 candidates.
Revanth Reddy, who was one of the star campaigners for Congress, recalled that the Congress government in undivided Andhra Pradesh had provided 5 percent reservation for Muslims but as it was breaching the 50 percent barrier of reservation for all segments, it slashed the quota for Muslims to 4 percent on the direction of the Supreme Court.
The Chief Minister said the reservation was also implemented in the recent recruitment of teachers in Telangana. “We recruited 11,000 teachers of which 720 Muslims were recruited under the reservation,” he said.
Revanth Reddy’s remarks on the Muslim reservation has angered the BJP. Union Minister for Coal and Mines and Telangana BJP president G. Kishan Reddy termed it ‘minority appeasement politics at its worst’. “The Congress Party’s promise to dole out reservations for Muslims is a blatant betrayal of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s vision and the principles enshrined in our Constitution. The move not only fans communal division but also puts in danger the reservations for the needy and deserving SC, ST and OBCs,” Kishan Reddy posted on ‘X’. “BJP will never let this happen. We are committed to safeguarding the integrity of Babasaheb’s Constitution. People of Maharashtra beware of this regressive Religion-based Reservation,” he added.
