Karnataka Deputy CM may not have heard of many things. It doesn’t mean that they are impossible, the AIMIM supremo tweeted.
Team Clarion
HYDERABAD — Just hours before campaigning for the 119-seat Telangana Assembly elections drew to a close on Tuesday evening, a war of words broke out between All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) supremo Asaduddin Owaisi and Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivkumar over Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao’s poll promise to set up an Information Technology (IT) Park near the state capital of Hyderabad for the Muslim community.
Owaisi was harshly critical of Shivkumar’s questioning of the IT park announcement. “How can they make an IT park just for a community? I have never heard any such thing. This shows that KCR has weakened himself. You can promote the minority community, women, and children, but cannot make an IT park just for one community,” Shivakumar had said.
In response, Owaisi took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter), expressing disapproval of Shivakumar’s comments. The AIMIM leader asserted that just because Shivakumar may not have heard about certain initiatives doesn’t mean they are impossible. Owaisi emphasised that Muslims, along with other backward classes, scheduled castes, and scheduled tribes, face disadvantages that the dominant castes do not.
“Dear D.K. Shivakumar, you have not heard of many things, doesn’t mean that they are impossible. If youth, children, and women don’t have any caste, why is your leader promising a caste census? The truth is that Muslims, BCs, SCs & STs face disadvantages that dominant castes don’t,” Owaisi tweeted.
He highlighted that Muslims in Telangana are not just voters but full-fledged citizens deserving a fair share in the state’s progress. Providing support to Muslim entrepreneurs is essential to help transform them into job creators from mere job seekers, he said.
Addressing concerns raised by Shivakumar about the creation of an exclusive IT park for Muslims, Owaisi clarified, “It doesn’t mean an EXCLUSIVE IT Park where ONLY Muslims work, but it definitely means that special support is provided to them so that they can overcome the discrimination that they face.”
Owaisi further criticised Shivakumar for what he termed “showing your real anti-Muslim face” and posed a question regarding quota for backward Muslims in Karnataka, asking whether it will be reinstated or abandoned.
In a bid to woo minority voters in the November 30 polls, Chief Minister Rao, who is also the founder leader of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), recently told a poll rally that if his party retains power, his government would set up a special IT park for Muslim youths.
“Today, we are giving pensions which Muslims are also getting. We have opened residential schools in which Muslim students also study. We take everyone along with us. Today, we are thinking about Muslim youths and setting up a special IT park for them near Hyderabad. The IT park will come up near Pahadi Shareef,” he said.
KCR’s announcement was also criticised by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), which labelled the announcement as “appeasement politics”. “One IT park for a particular religion in Hyderabad is appeasement by KCR. We need to keep this in mind,” BJP national president J.P. Nadda said.