After six years of strategic marriage with the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM), the TRS is yet to make out how will its relationship with the Majlis affect its political fortune in Telangana. Both the parties try hard to put up a strong show of companionship for public consumption, but many TRS leaders feel that the party has much more to lose from this bonhomie than gaining anything.
A senior TRS leader opined that “Owaisi brothers have never lost a single opportunity to embarrass the ruling party inside and outside of the house. The two political parties are bound by give-and-take rather than principles or ideological reasons.”
Latest in the series of episodes, Owaisi’s party caused another embarrassment to the ruling TRS. Majlis party MLAs made themselves absent in the assembly session when the ruling party sponsored a resolution requesting the Centre to confer the highest civilian honour of ‘Bharat Ratna’ on former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao.
Though Owaisi brothers are the recipients of the liberalisation reforms unleashed by PV, on Tuesday, all its MLAs did not show up to support the ruling party’s resolution introduced by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao in the State Assembly.
Several TRS leaders felt peeved at the way Majlis shunned their initiative. They argue that PV should not be seen from a religious prism, but as a tall leader who put India on the path of economic liberalization. PV is also credited for bringing in pioneering land reforms when he was the chief minister of United AP. They point out that it is unfair to paint religious colours on his stature and link him to the demolition of the disputed structure at Ayodhya. Bitter rivals Congress and BJP also shared the views of the ruling TRS members.
The AIMIM leadership which extracted concessions of various sorts to strengthen politically and consolidate itself, refused to toe the line of the ruling party, citing religious reasons. However, attendance of the AIMIM would not make any difference in the outcome of the passing of the resolution. Its absence reveals that the relationship between the two parties is nothing but political convenience. There is heartburn in TRS leaders over AIMIM causing embarrassment, claiming an exclusivist political stand on different issues and on several occasions.
