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This comes after the recent Federation report on the election promises made by the Congress Government in the Karnataka Assembly 2023 elections, which raised concerns about insufficient representation.

“Today, there is not a single Muslim Lok Sabha MP from Karnataka. The number of Lok Sabha tickets given by Congress to Muslims has drastically dropped to just one. Representation in the Rajya Sabha is also limited to just one member. Consequently, the representation of the state’s Muslim community in Parliament has hit an all-time low,” the Federation said in a statement on May 26.

The body estimated that the Congress could comfortably win three Rajya Sabha seats out of the four seats up for election on June 18. The statement noted that overall Muslim representation across the board remained very low compared to the population, in contrast with the support given to the Government in 2023.

It had also flagged disproportionately low Muslim representation at the MLC level.

These demands come amid the potential dissatisfaction amongst a section of Karnataka’s Muslim electorate.

This was seen in a rebellion among some Muslim Congress leaders, culminating in the suspension of MLC Abdul Jabbar and the removal of MLC Naseer Ahmed from the post of the chief minister’s political secretary, which also stripped him of Cabinet rank.

While the Congress still managed to eke out a victory in the bypoll for Davanagere South, where Muslims constitute a third of the electorate, the apparent dissatisfaction with the ruling party’s decision not to field a candidate from the community had slashed the margin of victory from 27,900 to 5,700.