Addressing a rally in Rajasthan’s Tonk-Sawai Madhopur Lok Sabha constituency, which votes on April 26, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the Congress has tried to reduce the reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and give it to Muslims in defiance of the Constitution. He made a specific reference to the attempts made by the Congress government to provide a 5% quota for Muslims in Andhra Pradesh saying that it was a “pilot project” that it wanted to implement for the entire country.
He further pointed out that the BJP government, when elected in Karnataka, abolished the Muslim reservation in March last year, a reservation which he alleged “was created by snatching it from STs/SCs.” This is however not the first time that the BJP has articulated its stance on the Muslim quota. Last year in June, while addressing a rally in Maharashtra, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that “reservation for the Muslim community is against the Constitution.”
