The elections to the Legislative Assembly and Lok Sabha in Andhra Pradesh has been concluded just which has thrown up many surprises. TRS has stormed its way into power in Telangana whereas Telugu Desam edged out YSRC in a straight fight to take hold of the reins in Seemandhra.
The Congress was virtually wiped out in Seemandhra and managed to barely survive in Telangana. All but one of its sitting Lok Sabha members, including former Union ministers and chief ministerial aspirants, had to take a fall.
But as far as the minorities are concerned; there has been no change in their representation in Seemandhra and only an insignificant improvement in Telangana.
Only eight Muslims have been elected in the 119-member Telangana Assembly, including seven from MIM and one from TRS. In the 175-member Seemandhra Assembly, only four Muslims have been elected, all from YSRCP.
In the outgoing AP Assembly, the 11 Muslim members include seven from Telangana and four from Seemandhra. The only addition this time has been from Bodhan in Nizamabad district.
MIM has all its seven members from Hyderabad and TRS has its lone Muslim MLA from Nizamabad district. YSRCP’s count includes one Muslim MLA each from Kadapa, Guntur,Krishna and Anantapur districts.
Telangana has elected a lone Muslim MP from Hyderabad whereas no Muslim MP was elected from Seemandhra.
N Md Farooq, a lone Muslim candidate from TDP lost from Nandyal, which has the highest concentration of Muslim voters in the entire Seemandhra.
This sorry situation perpetuates in spite of the fact that a large number of Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies in both states have a sizeable number of Muslim voters.
Only a handful of Muslim candidates were fielded by the main parties and these included nominees put up in opposition to MIM in the Old City constituencies. Even these few had no chance of winning.
As a result, Chandrababu Naidu has to now pick an “outsider” to represent the minorities in his cabinet since there is no Muslim MLA or MLC from his party in Seemandhra.
K Chandrasekhar Rao is somewhat in a better position since TRS has a Muslim MLA and a Muslim MLC to choose from for a cabinet berth.
The Muslim representation in the two states is, therefore, far less compared to the population of Muslims.
Muslims make up 9.2 percent of the total population in AP. Their proportion is 12.5% in Telangana and 7% in Seemandhra. Muslims within Telangana, account for a share of 42% in the total population in Hyderabad district and about 33% in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation area.
The results of the local bodies’ elections announced recently are also dampening the spirits. The number of elected Muslim members in municipalities’, nagar panchayats and municipal corporations, gram panchayats, mandal parishads and zilla parishads is far less compared to their proportion of population.
Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes and women enjoy reservations in local bodies (panchayat raj institutions and urban local bodies) in both the states. Due to BC reservations, candidates from BC communities, including those belonging to educationally and socially backward class of Muslims (BC-E Group), have been elected in the local bodies. Or else, the representation of Muslims would have been much less.
Both the states need to continue various schemes, policies and programmes being implemented for socio-cultural, economic, linguistic and educational development of the minorities apart from political representation to Muslims. These include pre-matric and post-matric scholarships and reimbursement of tuition fees scheme, bankable schemes for self-employment for youth.
Pre- and post-matric hostels and residential schools for minorities (boys and girls), training, employment and placement schemes, improvement of classroom performance of minority children, improvement of participation and performance of minorities in job-seeking and competitive exams, long-term coaching for civil services, digitisation of wakf records, construction and repairs to wakf institutions, mass marriages, assistance to divorced Muslim women, computer education, schemes for promotion of Urdu language, construction of Urdu-ghars-cum-shadikhanas, vocational training in Urdu and maintenance of Haj House and facilities to Haj pilgrims.