Following strong criticism from different quarters of the Muslim community for extending support to the Lok Satta Party president Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan for the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha seat, the Muslim United Forum on Thursday reversed its decision and announced its support for Union Minister Sarve Satyanarayana.
The Forum comprises of several prominent religious personalities including Tameer-e-Millat President Mohammad Abdul RAheem Qureshi, Jamia Nizamia Director Syed Akbar Nizamuddin Hussain Saberi, Majlis-e-Ulema Deccan president Syed Md Qubool Badesha Shutteri, Darul-Uloom head Mohammad Raheemuddin Ansari and others.
They had come under severe criticism after they announced their support to candidates of different parties for different seats. In a damage control exercise, the clerics held an emergency meeting on Thursday and reversed some of their decisions.
"The Forum has made an appeal to the voters of the Seemandhra region, particularly the Muslims, to vote for AIMIM candidates in Anantapur Urban, Hindupur, Kadiri, Guntakal, Madanapalli, Nandyal, Alur, Adoni, Rayachoti, Ponnur, Guntur West, Guntur East, Markapuram, Vijayawada West and Singanamala (SC) Assembly constituencies," Forum chief Rahim Qureshi said.
He said that the Forum had also decided to support MIM candidate P V N Reddy from Nandyal, and did not elaborate on why it was not supporting former minister Md Farooq's candidature from Nandyal (Farooq is contesting on TDP ticket).
For the rest of the seats in Seemandhra, the Forum had asked voters to vote in favour of candidates who could defeat the TDP-BJP combine.
The Forum's decision is likely to draw further criticism as no religious leader from Seemandhra was either consulted or included in Forum while taking a decision on the Seemandhra elections.
"Who are you to question our decisions?" an angry Qubool Pasha Shattari, the Forum's Vice-President, asked media personnel.
Despite drawing severe criticism for the decisions taken earlier, the Forum members were not willing to clarify their stand. They did not explain the logic behind choosing a particular candidate to be supported in the elections. They had no answers on whether the people should judge the sitting MLAs on their previous performance.
A few members of the Forum had indeed admitted that no scientific or uniform approach has been adopted while announcing their support.
The Forum members clearly looked to be tilting towards the MIM and Congress, in both the Telangana and the Seemandhra regions.
Interestingly, they preferred non-Muslim candidates of the MIM over Muslim candidates of other parties. This is probably the most-secular approach adopted by any religious group of Muslims in India so far.
They were apprehensive that both the TRS and the YSRCP might join the BJP-led NDA after the elections, although they did not speak to either of these two parties on this issue or submit to them their list of demands for the Muslim community. (INN)