By Mohd. Ismael, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad: Syed Ibrahim of Telangana Rashtriya Samithi (TRS) is the only Muslim candidate from any major political party to get a ticket to contest the assembly by-elections in Andhra Pradesh. The state by-elections for seven assembly constituencies are scheduled to be held at the end of March, in which nearly 127 candidates are in fray.
Ibrahim will contest from Mahbubnagar assembly constituency. He had also contested from there in 2009 assembly elections but had lost to the then independent candidate Rajeswar Reddy. Reddy later died of heart attack in October 2011, making the by-poll necessary.
In the assembly elections of 2009, Ibrahim got 33110 votes, loosing by the margin of 5137 votes. 39 years old Syed Ibrahim is a rich real estate business man. He submitted his assets record to the election commission crossing 5 crore.
Mahbubnagar constituency has a strong Muslim presence with Muslim voters around 25,000; thus making it a crucial constituency for TRS to win and send a message across to the minority community in the Telangana region.
But the troubles have already started for Ibrahim from the BJP, the former TRS ally. By fielding a Muslim candidate from a minority populated seat, the TRS had aimed to get all the pro-Telangana votes, along with the Muslim votes, making it a direct equation for wining the seat.
But the saffron party is trying hard to divide the pro Telangana vote. On top of this trouble, even the local TRS Muslim leaders from Mahbubnagar have strongly opposed Ibrahim’s candidature on the pretext of him being an “outsider”
Fearing division of Muslim votes, K Chandra Shekhar Rao, the TRS chief has asked the party minority chief, Mehmood Ali to try to bridge the differences in order to prevent the division of Muslim votes.
Out of 5 assembly seats on which the TRS is fighting, the seat of Mahbubnagar has emerged as the most crucial one as K. Chandra Shekar Rao represents Mahbubnagar parliamentary constituency.
The Mahbubnagar constituency is also crucial for the TRS because, it could become a chance for the Telangana based party to win back Muslim support in the region which the party lost due to its alliance with BJP.
Quite naturally now several senior TRS leaders have been asked to focus on Mahbubnagar constituency and KCR himself is going to campaign for his candidate in the constituency.