Vijayawada: The Telugu Desam has distanced itself from the anti-Muslim remarks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Rajasthan on Sunday. “We are committed to safeguard Muslim interests in AP,” the party said on Tuesday.
The Prime Minister, in a controversial speech at an election rally, called Muslims as infiltrators and outsiders having large families and said they were the cause of unequal distribution of wealth in the country.
Criticism is sharp against Modi’s “hate speech” and many observers stressed that Muslims are an integral part of the population and they mostly upheld the cause of secularism.
In AP, the Telugu Desam allied with the BJP and Jana Sena to contest the present elections with a common objective to unseat the ruling YSRC from power. TD has a sizeable Muslim support base.
Telugu Desam president Nara Chandrababu Naidu has been trying to woo Muslims in this polls and even made a promise that the four per cent reservation to them would be restored. In this context, some indications were that a section of the Muslims would support the TD. However, the statement of the PM has caused embarrassment to the TD.
A senior TD leader said, “We will not accept Modi’s remarks on Muslims but we will check the context in which he remarked. The BJP government brought in a law against ‘Triple Talaq’ and this provided considerable relief to Muslim women.”
Political analysts say that though Muslims are a traditional vote bank for Congress, they switched their loyalty to the YSRC after the 2014 state bifurcation. However, some sections of Muslims are supporting the TD.
But, with the ‘revival’ of the state Congress led by Y.S. Sharmila, they appear to be in a mood to back the tricolour party in the Rayalaseema region, the analysts note.
President of the Muslim Personal Law Board of India (AP), Moulana Mohammad Ali, said, “We do not accept Modi’s remarks against us. However, we understand that such remarks were made by him in certain local contests in Rajasthan, with a view to deriving political mileage for the BJP there.”
