NEW DELHI: Responding to senior
Congress
veteran P Chidambaram’s claim that
PM Narendra Modi
continued to fight ghosts in his election speeches on the
quota issue
, BJP on Thursday circulated a long list of occasions when the quota system was altered especially to benefit the
Muslim community
.
“Congress ensured that
SC/ST reservation
, as mandated by the Constitution, was removed from Aligarh Muslim University (1981) and Jamia Millia Islamia (2011) in favour of Muslims, even though both are govt funded.
Congress also ensured that ‘minority’ institutions, even if state funded, don’t have to provide reservations for SC/ST/OBCs,” BJP IT department head Amit Malviya said as he posted a list of times when the quota structure was altered. He said not just this, Congress tried to give
reservation
to Muslims in Andhra Pradesh five times but the courts struck it down every time.
After citing several attempts by Congress to introduce 5% Muslim quota in govt jobs and educational institutions between 2004-14, BJP claimed that in June 2013, then minority affairs minister K Rahman Khan said UPA was committed to implement a 4.5% Muslim quota. “Finally, the UPA govt went to SC to plead for Muslim reservation. The SC clubbed the central Muslim quota case of UPA govt with the Andhra Pradesh Muslim quota case and heard the matter through a constitutional bench,” Malviya said.
Rebutting Chidambaram’s claim, Malviya said the 2024 Congress manifesto unequivocally implied Muslim reservation. “For instance, what is the difference between Point 3 and Point 6 in the minorities section of the manifesto? Point 3 says ‘encourage’ minorities to take full advantage of opportunities. If the Congress manifesto had limited itself to just this, it would have been okay. But Point 6 says ‘ensure’ minorities receive ‘fair share’ on exactly the same issues as mentioned in Point 3,” Malviya said.
Meanwhile, Baby Rani Maurya, a senior minister in Yogi Adityanath’s cabinet and a known Dalit face, cited the several positions she held, from governor to a senior minister, and said Congress and its allies should respond to Modi’s “challenge” that there will not be any alteration in the quota system to accommodate Muslims for their politics of appeasement and vote bank.
