BJP is hoping to home in on an issue generated by the Congress announcement of 4.5% quota for the Muslim backward classes.
In the hunt for an elusive hot issue in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is hoping to home in on an issue generated by the Congress announcement of 4.5% quota for the Muslim backward classes. The party hopes to make this its main poll plank, polarise the voters and garner the Hindu vote.
While it was party vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi who warned of a civil war in UP in the wake of the Congress’ Salman Khurshid’s promise of 9% reservation for Muslims in the state, the party fielded saffron-robed Uma Bharti to fire the second salvo.
Bharti said that the party believed in “Ram and roti”. She told the media persons on Wednesday that her party would oppose reservation for Muslims on the basis of religion, and accused the Congress of creating a psychological partition after causing a physical partition of the country on the basis of religion in 1947.
Bharti had also pointed out that reservation should be rejected by the Muslims as it was based on caste distinctions, an alien concept in contrast to Islam’s egalitarian principles. She said caste divisions of the Hindu society and the inequalities it generated had necessitated reservations and it should not be extended to Muslims.
Bharti wanted to know if the Congress wants to create a Hindu state? She said that her party believes in a secular state. “Even we (the BJP) do not want a Hindu state,” she said. She said reservation for religious minorities would make sense only when a state professes the religion of the majority.
Saffron-robed Bharti, the prodigal daughter who returned to the BJP fold, met journalists for the first time on Wednesday since she rejoined the party. It appears her presence is to disprove talk about she being miffed about the induction of Babu Singh Kushwaha, the former BSP minister in Uttar Pradesh.
A favourite with the media, she made the press interaction lively when she said that she belonged to the same category as the Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi — that is, the two were unmarried. She was responding to an editorial in Kamal Sandesh, the party newsletter, which said that Rahul Gandhi was a worried man because he was unmarried. She said she was unmarried and she was happy.
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