Hyderabad: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said attempts to provide reservation to minorities are betrayal with the nation and an insult to the framers of the Indian Constitution. Addressing an election rally of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he called for defeating any such move to protect the country’s unity. Hitting out at the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government for its move to increase reservation for minorities to 12 per cent, Modi said he was surprised how the power-hungry were pushing for religion-based quota for the sake of their family and to save their seats of power.
Stating that the issue of religion-based reservation was discussed in the Constituent Assembly, the Prime Minister said the great personalities framing the Constitution decided against it in the interest of the country’s unity. Modi wondered from where the reservation for minorities would come when the Supreme Court had already fixed the upper limit of total reservation at 50 per cent. “They will take away the rights of Dalits, STs and OBCs from the backdoor. Will you allow this crime?” he asked the participants in the rally held at L.B. Stadium.
Telangana Assembly had last year passed a resolution to increase reservation for minorities in jobs and education from current 4 per cent to 12 per cent and the same was sent to the Centre. TRS had blamed Modi for the delay in implementing its poll promise made in 2014. Modi also came down heavily on TRS, saying it destroyed Telangana the way Congress destroyed the nation. Countering Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s allegation that TRS is ‘B’ team of BJP, Modi said TRS and the Congress had common nature, character, thinking and policies.
The Prime Minister recalled that during the Karnataka Assembly elections, Rahul Gandhi used to dub Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) as the ‘B’ team of BJP, but after the elections formed the government with the same party to keep the BJP out of power. Branding the TRS and the Congress as the two sides of the same coin, he alleged that they have already started planning backdoor entry to prevent BJP from coming to power in Telangana. Modi said both TRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had their apprenticeship in the Congress and this made them natural friends. (IANS)
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