Reservation Row Disrupts Parliament: Congress And BJP Spar Over Muslim Quota

Reservations and the Constitution took centre stage in the Lok Sabha election campaign of 2024. The same issues rocked both houses of parliament today. The BJP aggressively raised the issue, centring it around the latest move by the Karnataka state government led by the Congress party to have 4 per cent reservations for minorities in public works. Ministers Kiren Rijiju and JP Nadda said DK Shivakumar, the Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka, has said that the Constitution will be changed to facilitate religion-based reservation. But the Congress party has moved a privilege notice against the ministers saying they misled the house. Mr Shivakumar said he was misquoted, even as BJP MP Ravishankar Prasad played out his words, and defended the BJP's attack. Now in the fight to settle who is hoping to change the Constitution and who is wanting to protect it, have the political narratives around reservation become inevitable for every party's outreach to deprived communities? Why is Muslim reservation such a flashpoint between the BJP and Congress? How is this issue going to play out politically?