Telangana Congress leader Mohammed Waliullah Sameer on Friday alleged that AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi was selling a political formula in Uttar Pradesh that he had never implemented in his home state of Telangana.
Reacting to Owaisi's recent speeches urging Muslims in Uttar Pradesh to stop depending on Nehru-Gandhi or Yadav leadership and build leaders from within the community, Sameer said the Hyderabad MP must first explain how many independent Muslim leaders AIMIM had created outside its traditional pockets during its decades of political dominance in Telangana.
"Owaisi is telling Muslims in Uttar Pradesh that Abdul should no longer spread the carpet for others and should himself become a leader. Fine. But before giving this advice in Azamgarh or Rampur, he should tell us what happened to Abdul in Telangana. Why was he never allowed to move beyond a few selected constituencies?" said Sameer, Congress in-charge for Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency.
He said the debate should not be reduced to whether Muslims needed greater political representation, as there was no disagreement on that.
"Muslims certainly need more representation. They need more MLAs, MPs, ministers, mayors, councillors and party office-bearers. But the real question is whether Owaisi has expanded that representation or simply monopolised it in a limited geography," he said in a statement.
Sameer said AIMIM had contested only nine of the 119 Assembly constituencies in Telangana in the 2023 elections.
If Owaisi genuinely believed that Muslim youth were being denied platforms by larger parties, why did AIMIM itself leave 110 Assembly constituencies "untouched" in the 2023 polls, and were there no capable Muslim lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, social workers, women or educated youngsters in those constituencies, he asked.
AIMIM had, in fact, supported the BRS in most of the constituencies where it did not field candidates, he said.
Owaisi was telling Muslims in Uttar Pradesh to stop depending on others, but in Telangana he had voluntarily handed over political space to another party, Sameer said.
He accused the AIMIM chief of using the language of Muslim empowerment mainly while expanding into states where the party sought a new electoral base.
Owaisi raised the slogan of Muslim empowerment in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra and West Bengal, but there had been no serious attempt to create Muslim leadership in AIMIM's home base of Telangana, he said.
Sameer said Hyderabad should have become the "strongest advertisement for Owaisi's political model" if his claims were genuine.
Noting that AIMIM had elected representatives in the municipal corporation and the Hyderabad parliamentary constituency, the Congress leader said that if that model had truly transformed Muslim political power, Hyderabad should today be producing dozens of leaders.
Instead, political influence has remained concentrated, while most ordinary Muslims continue to struggle for education, employment, housing, health and civic infrastructure, he said.
(With inputs from PTI)