Karnataka: Amit Shah Lauds BJP Govt's Decision To Abolish Religion-based Reservation For Muslims, Says It Was Constitutionally Invalid

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday praised the Karnataka government's decision of scrapping the four per cent reservation for Muslims under 2B Other Backward Classes (OBCs) category, saying the quota on religious lines was constitutionally invalid.

Addressing public gatherings at Gorata village in Bidar district and Gabbur in Raichur district, he slammed the Congress for introducing the four per cent reservation for Muslims for "its vote bank politics".

Shah earlier unveiled a martyrs’ column and a 20-feet statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and also hoisted the national flag on the 103-feet-tall flag post at the village.

The Union Minister pointed out that Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government also tried to do away the injustice to the Scheduled Castes(SC) by introducing a new internal reservation.

On Friday(March 24), the BJP-led state government also recast the internal reservation formula for the 17 per cent quota for around 101 groups classified as SC. The SC (left) category, which consists of 29 communities, including Madigas, will get 6 per cent of the quota, whereas the SC (right) with around 25 communities such as Holeyas, will get 5.5 per cent.

'Touchable communities' such as Banjaras and Bhovis will have 4.5 per cent of the quota, and other communities in the category will get the remaining 1 per cent.

The entire 2B category was only for the Muslims and the BJP government scrapped it saying that it was not constitutionally tenable and divided the four per cent quota equally among the two dominant communities of the state: Vokkaligas in 2C reservation category and Veerashaiva-Lingayats in 2D reservation category.

With this, 2B became redundant while Vokkaligas' reservation went up from four per cent to six per cent and Lingayats from five per cent to seven per cent.

"The BJP never believes in appeasement. So, it decided to change the reservation," Shah said strongly defending the decision.

"The BJP abolished the four per cent reservation given to the minorities and gave two per cent to the Vokkaligas and two per cent to the Lingayats," Shah said.

"The reservation for minorities is not Constitutionally valid. There is no provision in the Constitution to give reservation based on religion. This Congress government did it for its appeasement politics and gave reservation to the minorities," he added.

Former Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa, BJP State unit president Nalin Kumar Kateel, Union Minister Bhagwanth Khuba and other senior party leaders were present.

(With inputs from PTI)