A day after Andhra Pardesh Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao met Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking Center’s nod to 12 per cent quota for backward Muslims, the main Opposition Congress demanded to know the details of the discussions between the two leaders.
Mohammed Ali Shabbir, leader of the Opposition, urged the Chief Minister to come out with the details of Prime Minister Modi’s response to his request on Muslim quota.
“I want to know from the Chief Minister the basis of his assertion that 12 per cent quota for the backward Muslims was possible,” he said. He pointed out that in Prime Minister’s own State Gujarat, the High Court had struck down the 10 per cent quota for the Patel community.
Mohammed Ali Shabbir was reacting to the reports from New Delhi about the hour-long meeting between KCR and the Prime Minister on Monday.
The reports quoting sources said that KCR urged the Prime Minister to accord an early approval to the Telangana State Reservation Act 2017 which increased the reservation for the backward Muslims from 4 to 12 per cent and for the Scheduled Tribes from 8 to 10 per cent. The Bill was passed recently by a special session of the State legislature.
According to the report, KCR also demanded that States should get the powers to decide the reservation quota for various sections keeping in view the social composition which vary from State to State.
Chief Minister explained to the Prime Minister reasons behind the decision to increase the quota for the backward Muslims. “This is not on the basis of religion but on the basis of economic and educational backwardness of Muslims,” sources quoted KCR telling the Prime Minister.
However, nothing was known about the response of Prime Minister to his demand. The meeting assumes significance in view of the fact that the BJP was vociferous in opposing the quota for the Muslims. Telangana BJP leadership has already launched a movement against the legislation and was demanding scrapping the quota for Muslims altogether.
Sources said that the idea of simultaneous polls for the lok Sabha and all the State Assembly also came up during the discussion. KCR supported the idea of the Prime Minister Modi and said that Telangana was ready to accept it. But it was unlikely to make any major difference as the State had simultaneous polls in 2014 and will have the next polls in 2019 simultaneously.