As the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party vie with one another to woo Muslims ahead of next year's Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, SP president Mulayam Singh on Tuesday demanded the implementation of the Sachar and Ranganath Misra Committee reports in toto.
“There is no alternative but the immediate implementation of the reports for the betterment of the Muslims, who have been denied justice since Independence,” Mr. Singh said.
Supported by the ‘Muslim face' of the Samajwadi Party, Mohammad Azam Khan, Mr. Singh threatened to launch an agitation and raise the issue in the winter session of Parliament if the recommendations of the two panels were not implemented.
Mr. Singh's demand comes close on the heels of the reported statement of Union Law and Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed that the Centre was considering granting 6 per cent reservation to socially and educationally backward Muslims in Central government jobs. The separate quota for the Muslims would be within the 27 per cent reservation for the OBCs, Mr. Khursheed was reported to have said at a private school function in Lucknow on Monday.
Hitting out at the Congress-led UPA government, the Samajwadi president said several commissions were appointed by the Congress but their findings had been gathering dust. “Not a single report has been implemented,” Mr. Singh told journalists at the SP headquarters here on Tuesday. The Sachar and Mishra reports had pointed out that the condition of the Muslims was worse than that of the Dalits. In the same vein, the SP president said he was not opposed to reservation for the Dalits.
Mr. Azam Khan said the Union Minister had tried to mislead the Muslims as nowhere had he categorically stated that backward Muslims would be given 6 per cent reservation in jobs.
What prevented the UPA government from amending the Constitution for giving reservation to the Muslims, the Rampur MLA asked. The courts should take suo motu cognisance of such announcements (reportedly made by Mr. Khursheed) as they amounted to “poll-related bribery,” Mr. Khan said.
At forefront of struggle
Mr. Singh said the Samajwadi Party had always been in the forefront in the struggle for betterment of the Muslims and had launched two agitations in the past. Apart from raising the issue in the Lok Sabha, the SP president said he had also written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the subject.
Drawing a comparison with the Mayawati government, Mr. Singh claimed that as against only about 2 per cent Muslims in the 33,000 police constables recruited under the present regime, the percentage of Muslims in the police force was 14.5 when he was in power.
“This was done despite there being no separate quota for the Muslims,” Mr. Singh added.
