Asserting that political representation is essential for the uplift of any community, Y. Sayeed Ahmed, president of the State minority cell of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), has said the committee would demand the Congress to offer at least 30 seats of the total 224 to Muslims in the upcoming Assembly elections.
Addressing presspersons here on Monday, Mr. Ahmed said the committee has already conducted a survey of all the Assembly segments in which it found that the State has 82 seats where the Muslim population was between 15% and 50%.
“Considering this, we will urge the party high command to ensure at least 30 tickets to Muslims in the State,” he said. Mr. Ahmed claimed that Muslims have been associated with the Congress for long. However, political representation is also required for their welfare, he added.
Mr. Ahmed said he would present an honest report to the high command on the performance of present Muslim MLAs of the party after holding consultations with local activists and people.
He admitted that in some places, he has got reports that the Muslim MLAs have not performed well to the expectations of the people.
Low Muslim representation
Regretting that the number of Muslim members was negligible in most of the gram and taluk panchayats in the State, he said Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah has assured to nominate Muslim leaders for the posts for giving them political representation at the grass-root level.
Taking exception to the recent statement of Union Minister Anantkumar Hegde on modifying the Constitution, Mr. Ahmed said it will never happen and the Congress will not let the BJP to change the Constitution.
He said the Constitution represents the aspirations of people of all castes and communities and not of any specific community that believes and practices caste system.
Accusing the BJP leaders of trying to create communal divide as the Assembly election was approaching, Mr. Ahmed asserted that the people of the State would defeat such an anti-social agenda of the BJP.
He said the Congress’ zonal convention of Muslims would be held in Vijayapura city in the last week of January.
Congress leaders S.M. Patil Ganihar, Zameer Bagalkot, Iqbal Gaganalli, Sartaj Bilagi, and Sajjadepeeran Mushrif were present.
