Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati, on Friday, made a fresh appeal to the Bharatiya Janata Party state governments to implement reservations for Muslims, taking cue from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement in Bhopal that 80 per cent of Indian Muslims are from backward classes.
The BSP leader, in a tweet, asked the BJP to “honestly” implement reservations and fill the backlog.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly saying at a BJP programme in Bhopal that 80 per cent of Muslims living in India are ‘Pasmanda, backwards, exploited’ is accepting the bitter reality that supports the need for reservation for Muslims,” she said.
The former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh said the BJP should not only drop its opposition to reservation but must also “honestly implement reservation and fill the backlog in recruitment to prove that they are different from other parties”.
Pushing for uniform civil code during a programme in Bhopal on June 27, Modi said that Pasmanda Muslims were never treated as equal because of vote bank politics.
‘Pasmanda’ is a term used for backward classes among Muslims.
“They have not got any benefit. They do not get equal rights. They are considered untouchables,” he said.
Modi said that in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and south India, especially Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu, and a number of other states, many castes were left behind from development because of the policy of appeasement. Modi said the BJP would not follow the path of appeasement and vote bank politics. He also alleged that the opposition was using the UCC issue to incite the Muslim community.