Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday lauded the Karnataka government’s decision to scrap the four per cent reservation for Muslims under the 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 “vote bank politics”.
The Union Minister pointed out that the Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government also tried to do away with the injustice to the Scheduled Castes by introducing a new internal reservation.
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 the 2C reservation category and the Veerashaiva-Lingayats in the 2D reservation category.
This rendered 2B obsolete, while the Vokkaligas’ reservation increased from 4% to 6% and the Lingayats’ from 5% to 7%.
“The BJP never believed 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 grant reservations based on religion. This Congress government did it for its appeasement politics and gave reservations to the minorities,” he added.
