Quota on religious lines constitutionally invalid: Amit Shah on Karnataka scrapping 4% reservation for Muslims

Congress on Sunday declared that it would restore the quota to the minority community in the event of the party coming to power in the State, where Assembly elections are due by May.

President of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) D K Shivakumar termed the step "unconstitutional". He said, "They (the government) think that reservation can be distributed like a property. It’s not a property. It’s a right (of minorities).”

"We don’t want their four per cent to be scrapped and given to any of the major communities. They ((members of the minority community) are our brothers and family members," Shivakumar said, claiming that entire Vokkaligas and Veerashaiva-Lingayats are rejecting this offer.

He said that the Congress party will come to power in the "next 45 days" and "we will scrap all this".

The entire 2B category was only for the Muslims and the BJP government scrapped it saying that it was not constitutionally tenable and divided the four percent quota equally among the two dominant communities of the state: Vokkaligas in 2C reservation category and Veerashaiva-Lingayats in 2D reservation category.

With this, 2B became redundant while Vokkaligas’ reservation went up from four percent to six per cent and Lingayats from five percent to seven percent.

"The BJP never believes in appeasement. So, it decided to change the reservation," Shah said strongly defending the decision.

"The BJP abolished the four percent reservation given to the minorities and gave two percent to the Vokkaligas and two percent to the Lingayats," Shah said.

"The reservation for minorities is not Constitutionally valid. There is no provision in the Constitution to give reservation based on religion. This Congress government did it for its appeasement politics and gave reservation to the minorities," he added.