New Delhi:
Law Minister Salman Khurshid, who has been issued a show-cause notice by the Election Commission for a recent speech, says he has not violated the code of conduct.
The minister had said in a speech in his wife Louise's constituency Farrukhabad on Sunday that if elected, the Congress would set aside a nine per cent sub-quota for UP government jobs for backward Muslims. Today, he pointed out that his party's manifesto says as much.
"The Sachar Committee and the Ranganath Misra Commission have recommended 8.5 per cent quota for Muslims. What is wrong if I talk about nine per cent reservation for them? I have not violated the model code of conduct. I have a right to put forth my view. It should reach the people. It means that we should not bring out a manifesto, not deliver a speech and sit back at home and elections should be held without all these?" Mr Khurshid asked.
The notice, the minister said, "is a notice, not an order to shoot at someone."
The Election Commission issued the show-cause notice to the minister on a complaint from the BJP. The minister's wife, Louise Khurshid, who is the Congress candidate from Farrukhabad, has also been served a notice by the state Election office for her husband's speech.
The Congress says Mr Khurshid has done no wrong; the BJP says the Congress is guilty of a conspiracy to divide and rule India.
Since elections have been announced for five states, including Uttar Pradesh, which votes for a new government in seven phases starting next month, announcements or policy decisions that can influence voters in a ruling party's favour are not allowed.
Last month, the union government announced that 4.5 per cent of the existing 27 per cent 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. That sub-quota has been more than doubled in Mr Khurshid's promise, which he says is what the Congress manifesto promises too.
His party has backed him. "What Salman Khurshid has said is right. The party could increase the sub-quota for backward Muslims within the existing OBC quota in UP in the event of its forming the government in the state," Congress spokesperson Rashid Alvi said yesterday.
The BJP described the minister's announcement as a conspiracy to woo voters ahead of the elections. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi of the BJP said the Congress' proposal "will create an atmosphere of division in UP, it is against the interests of the country."
The Congress won 22 Lok Sabha seats in the 2009 general elections. The party has made several attempts to woo the Muslim voter in the state for these Assembly elections. A package worth nearly Rs. 4000 crores was announced for the weavers of Varanasi, for example, most of who are Muslims.
In his campaign tour of the state, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi has been assiduously wooing minority voters - a significant 18 per cent of the electorate in UP is Muslim - in speech after speech. In east UP's Balia yesterday, Mr Gandhi targeted BSP leader and Chief Minister Mayawati and Mulayam Singh of the Samajwadi Party saying they had never done anything to get a quota for minorities as the Congress had now done. He also held a rally in Azamgarh, a Muslim stronghold.