Former Minister, Mohammed Ali Shabbir said that March 25 marks the 12th year of the Muslim reservations coming into existence in the combined Andhra Pradesh with the then Congress government getting approval from the Supreme Court for 4% reservations.
Thanks to those reservations thousands of poor Muslims benefitted in jobs in the government and seats in professional colleges and they continue to benefit from it, he said at a press conference here. Congress president Sonia Gandhi promised Muslim reservation in the 2004 election manifesto. The promise was implemented just 58 days after coming to power by the Congress government headed by Y.S. Rajashekhara Reddy, he said.
“We are not like K. Chandrasekhar Rao who promised to increase the reservation to 12% for both Muslims and Scheduled Tribes but failed to do so even after 8 years in power,” he charged and demanded that if KCR was sincere he should implement the enhanced reservations in the proposed recruitment of 80,039 vacancies.
Thanks to the reservations given by the Congress government Muslims are securing 1,073 MBBS seats in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. On average, nearly 16,000 poor Muslims became doctors in the last 17 years due to the 4% reservation given by the Congress government.
Similarly, lakhs of poor Muslims, who were categorised as BC-E, got admissions in engineering, MBA, MCA and other professional courses across undivided Andhra Pradesh apart from jobs in Group-I services and they went on to become District Collectors and senior police officers. He said as many as 43 Muslim corporators were elected in the GHMC elections due to the BC-E reservation.
The former Minister said that the Congress was launching a mass contact programme to get in touch with nearly 22 lakh beneficiaries of 4% Muslim reservation in both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh State.
