New Delhi:
Uma Bharti is back, after a sulk and a spot of illness, spearheading the BJP's attack in Uttar Pradesh. Today she went straight for the Congress' jugular over the minority quota issue, saying her party would launch a massive protest campaign against the "Congress attempt to divide and rule India on the basis of religion."
She accused the Congress of trying to bring about "a second partition" for electoral gains, saying "we criticize the attempt of the Congress to divide the Muslims by offering them reservations just before elections." The Congress' eye, she said, was fixed firmly on the Muslim votebank in UP, which votes next month.
Last month, the union government announced that 4.5% of the existing 27% quota for OBCs at the Centre will be reserved for minorities. It was an announcement made just in time to beat the setting in of the model code of conduct in UP and four other state. The Congress's manifesto for UP doubles that, promising a 9% sub-quota.
Ms Bharti asked Muslims to shun the Congress' move and said even Jawaharlal Nehru had opposed quota for minorities.
Pandit Nehru's great-grandson Rahul Gandhi is on the last leg of a whirlwind tour of UP, which has seen him assiduously woo the Muslim vote - a significant 18 per cent of the electorate in UP. In speech after speech he has patted his party on the back for bringing in the minority quota.
The Congress won 22 Lok Sabha seats in the 2009 general elections and among its several attempts to woo the Muslim voter in the state for these Assembly elections is also the announcement of a package worth nearly Rs 4000 crores for Ansari weavers of UP, for example, most of who are Muslims.
In Azamgarh, a polio-stricken Muslim weaver Faizan was feted by Rahul Gandhi yesterday as the hero of the hour with praise and chocolates.
The BJP is livid and says this is not fighting fair. A BJP complaint yesterday to the Election Commission resulted in a show-cause notice being issued to Law Minister Salman Khurshid for promising a 9 percent sub-quota for UP government jobs for backward Muslims if the Congress is elected in the state.
The BJP says Mr Khurshid violated the model code of conduct; the minister says he has not, as the Congress manifesto promises a 9% sub quota for backward Muslims.
Ms Bharti argued today that such a quota would not better the lot of backward Muslims and gave the example of BJP-ruled Gujarat where, she claimed, Muslims had fared better economically in the last 10 years than anywhere else in the country. Without such reservation.