الهند: حزب المؤتمر يكفل للمسلمين 6% من الوظائف والخدمات الحكومية

- خبر من مصادر إنجليزية.

في ظل الاستعداد للانتخابات المحلية على مقاعد مجلس ولاية "أوتر براديش" الهندية، وفي محاولة لاجتذاب أصوات الناخبين المسلمين - أعلن "راؤل غاندي" - سكرتير عام حزب المؤتمر الوطني الهندي - أن الحزب سيضمن للأقلية المسلمة حصة 6% من الوظائف الحكومية والخدمات والتعليم العالي.

وقد أشارت بعض التحليلات إلى أن الحصة المعلن عنها لا تعتمد على الأسس العقدية بقدر اعتمادها على الأوضاع الاقتصادية والاجتماعية والتعليمية المتردية للأقلية المسلمة، وأنها ستُخصم من حصتهم من المعالجات التي تطرحها لجنة "شؤون الطبقات الفقيرة". المصدر: شبكة الألوكة.

يرجى الإشارة إلى المصدر عند نقل الخبر - شبكة الألوكة.

الخبر من مصدره الأصلي:

Battlefield UP: Congress plans 6% quota for Muslims

With the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections turning into a do-or-die battle for Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, the party is planning to upset its rivals by offering 6 per cent reservation to Muslims in government jobs and higher educational institutes. Officials in the ministries of home, law, minority affairs and social justice have been deliberating over the past few weeks to prepare a formula to give the Congress edge ahead of elections.

A note prepared by the Ministry of Social Justice envisages a simple gazette notification after Cabinet approval for quota rather going for parliamentary nod. The note, prepared in consultation with Law Ministry, says that there is no need for Parliament’s nod as the reservation would be carved out of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) quota. "We are going by his logic that minorities, especially Muslims, should be regarded as backward in view of their very poor under-representation in government services," an official associated with the concept note said.

The move will directly affect Samajwadi Party (SP) chances and pit its two major vote banks—Muslims and the OBC Yadavs—against each other. It is expected that opposition by the OBCs would land SP’s Muslim votes in Congress’ bag.

Analysts believe that the Congress move would also be an answer to Chief Minister Mayawati’s deft move of recommending division UP into four smaller states to give boost to the sagging image of her Bahujan Samaj Party. The Congress core group, which met here few days ago, gave nod to the idea of Muslim reservation to counter Mayawati and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. The group also noted that that it would be counter-productive to oppose Mayawati’s small state move.

According to the proposal, the reservation won't be religion-based, which is not allowed under the Constitution. The bait of reservation is being thrown on grounds of economic and social backwardness of Muslims by earmarking a 6 per cent sub-quota for them in the existing 27 per cent reservation for the OBCs. Muslim communities will be notified by expanding the list of OBCs as done last week by adding 50 castes from 20 states, including Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Maharashtra in the list by the Ministry of Social Justice on recommendations of the National Commission for Backward Classes.

UP has 18 per cent Muslim population as per the 2001 census while their number is quite large, around 24 per cent, including Muslim Jats—in western UP, which is close to Delhi—to swing poll fortunes of whichever party they vote for en-block as seen in the past elections.