News Telangana

KCR Unveils Unprecedented Muslim-Specific IT Park Proposal

November 26, 2023
The Commune

With just days to go, before the state-wide election date of Nov 30, Telangana’s incumbent BRS government has announced a curious pre poll proposal, aimed at Muslim voters in the state.

CM K Chandrasekhar Rao’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi party (BRS) has declared a first-of-its-type election promise in the country – the Chief Minister has pledged to open an Information Technology (IT) park for Muslim youth near Pahadi Shareef, a predominantly Muslim neighborhood. Pahadi Shareef is a village suburb of Hyderabad, on the outskirts of the city, less than 10 KM away from Hyderabad’s main Shamshabad International airport.

It is known for the dargah or tomb of the Muslim sufi master, Syedna Baba Sharfuddin. The Congress party sees the BRS party’s eleventh hour announcement as a desperate move, just days ahead of the elections. It sees it as an indication of the BRS party’s speculation, that the Muslim vote may shift to the Congress party in the upcoming elections.

The BJP has denounced the BRS’s Muslim-specific IT industry initiative, as an extreme measure of minority-appeasement politics played in the country, by both the Congress and the “secular” parties. The BRS is in a tie-up with the Hyderabad-based AIMIM party (All India Majlees E Itehaddul Muslimeen), claiming to be a representative of Muslims, is led by Asaduddin Owaisi and had landed the Muslim vote comfortably in the last two state elections.

However, the BRS appears nervous about losing a large section of the vote to the Congress this year, on account of the Congress’s tall, budget-heavy poll promises for Minorities in the state. Another indication of the BRS’s uncertainty with its earlier domination of the Muslim vote appears to be, the fielding of a Muslim candidate to take on the Congress party’s Muslim candidate – ex-cricketer, Mohammed Azharuddin, in the upscale Jubilee Hills locality of Hyderabad.

Asaduddin Owaisi of the AIMIM’s acerbic verbal attacks on the Congress’s Muslim candidate included Azharuddin’s alleged lack of political skills, his track record of election victories in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and his poor service in a previously elected constituency that he later lost. After two consecutive terms in Telangana, the BRS suspects an anti-incumbency wave. It has sensed an erosion of its electorate, with the BJP making significant inroads into the state’s politics and the Congress fighting aggressively to regain its previously massive presence in Telangana. Analysts predict a close call between the BRS and the Congress, with both parties claiming they would win more seats than the other.

Although unwilling to admit publicly, neither party forsees a clear, simple majority in the 2024 electoral battle for Telangana’s 119 seats. In the meanwhile, the BJP, a fairly recent entrant into Telangana’s political playground, hopes to play the role of king-maker, retaining its share of predictable numbers and bringing its share of seats to a coalition government.