SHAH RULES OUT SPECIAL QUOTA FOR MUSLIMS IN TELANGANA

HYDERABAD: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah on Sunday ruled out reservation for Muslims in education and employment saying any such move would be against the Constitution’s spirit. He said there was no question of allowing religion-based quotas as long as the BJP was in power at the Centre.

Shah was referring to Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leader and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s (KCR) promise to ensure passage of a bill in Parliament to grant 12% reservations to Muslims if his party gets the state’s 16 out of 17 Lok Sabha seats.

“How can he do that? The Supreme Court has fixed a ceiling of 50% on the reservation. If he has to provide 12% quota for Muslims, he has to impose a cut in the percentage of reservations being provided for SCs (scheduled castes), STs (scheduled tribes) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs). So, which category has to lose its quota?” he asked at one of his election rallies in poll-bound Telangana.

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government had constituted an exclusive commission for OBCs to take care of their welfare. Shah added the Centre had helped the Telangana government in a big way, by increasing the funding for it by five times as per the 14th finance commission recommendations. “Besides, the Centre released another ~1.14 lakh crore to Telangana under various centrally-sponsored schemes,’’ he said.

Shah reminded KCR of his promise of making a Dalit as Telangana chief minister in 2014. Shah asked whether the TRS chief would stick to his promise at least in 2018. “Will he announce a Dalit as the CM candidate at least in 2018 or project his son?” he asked.