Won’t let Muslims avail quota for scheduled castes: Modi

HYDERABAD: Amid Congress attack that the BJP would change the Constitution and scrap reservations (quotas), Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday asserted that he would not let the quotas of scheduled classes — Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs (Other Backward Class) — going to Muslims on the basis of religion. 

Training his guns on the Congress, he accused the grand old party of making undivided Andhra Pradesh a “laboratory of appeasement” when it was in power in 2004 and 2009, by giving reservation of BCs to Muslims and also of harbouring “hatred” towards the Constitution since its birth.

Addressing an election rally in Zaheerabad Lok Sabha constituency in Telangana, he said, “As long as Modi is alive, I will not let reservations of Dalits, Adivasis, and OBC to be given to Muslims on the basis of religion.” When Congress won a record number of MPs and MLAs in undivided Andhra Pradesh in 2004 and 2009, it gave the reservation of backward classes to Muslims, he claimed.

While 26 castes in Telangana have been seeking OBC status for a long time, the Congress did not approve of that but categorised Muslims as OBC “overnight”, he said.

The Congress had started insulting the Constitution from “day one” when it removed drawings of Ramayan and Mahabharat on the Constitution given by B R Ambedkar, he said.

In a veiled reference to Rahul Gandhi, the PM said the “grandmother of Shehzada” (former PM Indira Gandhi) crushed the Constitution and imposed emergency in the country and jailed lakhs of people in the country.