Congress aims to provide Muslim quotas intended for SCs and OBCs, according to Nadda

The head of the BJP, J. P. Nadda, charged on Friday that the Congress was hiding an agenda and was trying to take away the rights of OBCs, SCs, and STs to help Muslims. In keeping with the BJP’s attempts to portray the Congress as a party that supports Muslim interests at the expense of historically marginalized Hindu groups, Nadda stated that the opposition party has been laying the foundation for the minority community’s designation as an SC and reservation for them for a long time.

As the second round of the Lok Sabha elections began, he released a video statement. Nadda mentioned remarks made in April 2009 by the then-prime minister Manmohan Singh, who stated that Muslims, in particular, should have priority access to the nation’s resources. Singh made this statement in 2006.

A lack of popular support for the incumbent party in the ongoing polls has prompted the Congress to accuse the BJP of selectively quoting Singh and to argue that the party has resorted to communal divisiveness and the distribution of falsehoods to create polarization during the elections. Nadda pointed out, nevertheless, that the Congress had attempted in a few states to grant Muslims reservation rights, notably in Karnataka, where he claimed the BJP government had abolished the quota but that the Siddaramaiah government had reinstated it.

According to him, it tried to grant reservations to Muslims in Andhra Pradesh as well but was unable to do so because of directives from the Supreme Court. He added that the Congress had pledged to provide Muslims with a sub-quota in the Other Backward Classes category for employment and educational institutions in its 2009 election manifesto.

He cited B. R. Ambedkar’s critique of Jawahar Lal Nehru for not addressing the welfare of Dalits in speeches to support his claim that the party has a longstanding practice of depriving SCs, STs, and OBCs of their legal rights. He said that Nehru has always supported Muslims.

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Nadda stated that while he never wanted Muslims to be ignored, they also shouldn’t receive special treatment at the expense of other groups. He claimed that the opposing party was creating the idea that Dalits were also Muslims to deny the minority community the benefits of the SC quota and that those who required greater protection should receive these benefits.

He said that to reverse court rulings ending reservations for underprivileged Hindi communities at universities like Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia, the Congress introduced laws.