BJP Objects to Quotas for Religious and Linguistic Minorities in Govt Jobs

September 30, 2004

Source: The Hindu

http://www.hindu.com/2004/10/01/stories/2004100105771100.htm

On September 30, 2004 The Hindu reported, "The Bharatiya Janata Party has raised strong objection to the Government move to set up a Commission to look into the issue of reservation in education and employment for the socially and educationally backward sections among the linguistic and religious minorities. The Government was trying to do what people such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Govind Vallabh Pant had unambiguously rejected, it claimed. 'Such a move will hurt the process of national integration and unity in the country,' the party vice-president and spokesperson, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, said today. 'The Congress has done this purely for political gains. It has adopted the politics of vote-banks and appeasement [of minorities],' he added. It is for the very first time that the Government is moving towards religion-based reservation and it would prove disastrous, Mr. Naqvi said... He said the 'backward' sections of the minority communities were already covered by the reservation for the backward classes. An advisory committee of the Nehru Government had 'unanimously' rejected the idea of religion-based reservation, he said."