Senior Telangana Congress leader, Abid Rasool Khan on Friday has quit the party alleging that genuine Muslim ticket aspirants have been ignored.
Khan, who was a former chairman of the state Minorities Commission, said the Congress should give tickets to Muslims in the constituencies of 10 old districts of the state where the party has chances to win.
Posing a question to party’s central leadership, Khan said, “Can they not do that much?”
The Congress has till now announced candidates in 75 constituencies, which include four Muslims.
Khan had earlier threatened to quit the party on Thursday while claiming that out of the four Muslim candidates announced by the Congress, two have joined the party only recently.
Expressing his disappointment with party President Rahul Gandhi, he said, “We (Muslim leaders of Telangana) are very upset. Our president, Rahul Gandhi, has time and again said he will take care of genuine workers, and he will not allow paratroopers to enter the party and take out the cake. Things are totally happening on the other side (to the contrary)”, reported PTI.
He further said, “Muslims constitute 30-35 percent of the population in some of the district headquarters like Nalgonda, Nizamabad, and Khammam”.
He also alleged that the leaders of the Reddy community have marked that territory as theirs and “don’t want to leave the seats at any cost, because Muslims easily vote them”.
He insisted that the central leadership of the party has to shift the Reddy community members from these towns and give tickets to Muslims.
“They (Reddy community members) can win from anywhere, as they are strong financially, but Muslims cannot win from other seats.”
“You don’t want to give us nominated positions, don’t want to give us political opportunities, you just want our votes. What is the difference between our party and the BJP?”, he added.
Criticizing the party to call themselves secular, he said, “It is a party which says it is secular but acts in a communal manner. They are saying they are secular, but they are acting in a communal manner. Really, we cannot differentiate”.
“If Rahul Gandhi really wants to win Telangana for Congress, he should sit down and set right this anomaly immediately,” he said.
The grand old party is fighting the election in alliance with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) and the Communist Party of India (CPI).
Under the seat-sharing formula announced by the Congress, the TDP would contest in 14 constituencies, TJS in eight and the CPI in three. The Congress would field candidates in 94 constituencies.
Meanwhile, one of its partners, TJS has also expressed disappointment with the party for giving them eight seats and so had declared that they would contest the election on 12 seats.
Telangana is to conduct polls in a single phase on December 7.