Hyderabad: The Mudiraj community, which holds a significant presence in 30 Assembly segments in the state, has decided to vote against the BRS in the Lok Sabha elections to express its anger against the party for its failure to fulfil its demands when it was in power.
The Mudiraj community is primarily angry with former chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao for not fulfilling his promise of including their community in the BC-A category as against BC-D and for not including new members in 5,000-odd fishermen cooperative societies in tune with their population.
The community said it would work for the party, which assures them to fulfil their genuine demands. The Medak, Mahbubnagar, and Chevella Lok Sabha constituencies have the highest concentration of the Mudiraj population.
“The BRS government in its first term had formed a nine-member Cabinet Sub-Committee to look into the grievances of the Mudiraj community. The committee, after a lot of deliberations with members of the community, submitted a report to the government, seeking the implementation of the Fishermen Protection Act and implementation of GO No 6, which assures to include new members aged above 18 in fishermen societies. But the then BRS government did not fulfil the demands,” said Dr. Choppari Shankar Mudiraj, president of the Telangana Mana Mudiraj Mahasabha.
The community was also not happy over Rao ignoring them politically in his second term. After Etala Rajendar, who hails from the Mudiraj community, was forced to quit, Rao did not included anyone from the community in his Cabinet. Dr Shankar Mudiraj said it was the first time in the state’s history, including that of united Andhra Pradesh, that the state cabinet did not feature a member from Mudiraj community.
Highlighting the BRS’ neglect for the Mudiraj community, Dr Shankar Mudiraj said the BRS chief had given a single corporation to a Mudiraj leader.
Even in the last Assembly elections, he said the BRS had not given a single Assembly ticket to a community member though it demanded the inclusion of its representatives by holding 30 ‘Atma Gaurava Sabhas’ and a public meeting at Parade Ground in Secunderabad. The community demanded 20 Assembly seats from each political party.
The Congress gave three seats and the BJP gave seven seats to Mudiraj members in the Assembly polls, said the community elder Shailendra Shivayya Mudiraj.
Rao allotted five acres of land at Plot Number 1 in Kokapet and assured Rs 5 crore for the construction of a building. Except for Bhumi Puja at the site, there was no progress and no amount was released yet.
The Congress government, however, assured the Mudiraj community that it would set up a finance corporation for the welfare of Mudiraj members when the community elders met Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy recently. The community is seeking the government to set up the corporation with a corpus fund of Rs 10,000 crore, looking at the large population of the community. The community claims that it makes up 14 per cent of the population in Telangana state.
According to Dr M Santosh Mudiraj, GO No. 98 of 1964 identifies 32 castes in united Andhra Pradesh as fishermen communities, which includes the Mudiraj community. Among 5,000 fishermen cooperative societies, the Mudiraj hold a major share among their four lakh members. The community sought the protection of their fishing areas from others and sought the strict implementation of the Fishermen Protection Act.
