The Bharatiya Janata Party will not allow the Telangana government to implement a 12 per cent reservation for minorities, party President Amit Shah said on Sunday.

Addressing election rallies at four places in the state, he said the BJP would neither provide quota on the basis of religion nor allow its implementation by others.

"As long as the BJP is in power at the Centre, there is no question of giving reservation to minorities," he said at a meeting in Nirmal town.

He was referring to the resolution passed by the Telangana legislature and sent to the Centre, seeking its approval for increasing reservation for Muslims in jobs and education from the current 4 per cent to 12 per cent.

Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) President K. Chandrashekar Rao, during his election speeches, has been targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not giving the nod to hike the quota for Muslims.

Terming the TRS government's move as "unconstitutional", the BJP chief pointed out that the Supreme Court has fixed a ceiling of 50 per cent on the overall quota.

He asked the TRS to specify whose quota it proposes to cut to provide reservation to the minorities.

Shah said his party would stand like a rock to protect the reservation for the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Backward Classes.

The BJP president, who also addressed rallies in Parkala, Narayankhed and Dubbaka, said that only his party could provide a government in Telangana that would not be dependent on the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) and its President Asaduddin Owaisi.

"Only the BJP can take on Majlis and Owaisi," he said.

Shah said the TRS government had also stopped celebrating Telangana Liberation Day, as it was scared of Owaisi. He said if voted to power, the BJP would celebrate the day on a grand scale in every village.

Recalling that it was in Nirmal that MIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi had delivered a speech, insulting Hindu gods and goddesses, Shah said the TRS government failed to take action against him.

He said the December 7 election would decide the future of the state. "You have given opportunity to all other parties to form government. Give a chance to us, we will turn Telangana into a model state."

Shah said the TRS chief had imposed the burden of an additional election by going in for early polls to the state Assembly to promote his son and daughter.

He claimed that the TRS chief Rao was afraid of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's impact if the Assembly polls were to be held along with the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.

He claimed that the central government provided over Rs 2.30 lakh crore for the development of Telangana during the last four years. He said half of these funds were allocated under the 14th Finance Commission.

He said Telangana was a revenue-surplus state but the TRS government imposed a burden of Rs 2 lakh crore in the form of loans on the state.

He said that Communists, who were losing ground across the world, and Congress, which was getting wiped out in the country, had come together in Telangana.

The BJP chief alleged that Congress President Rahul Gandhi backed urban Maoists when the Maharashtra government arrested them. "The Maoists have only two options. Either join the mainstream or be ready to go to jail," he added.

First Published:Nov 25, 2018 8:29 PM IST