Muslim Quota Bill erratic & strange: Jaipal Reddy

Describing the Muslim Reservation Bill introduced by the Telangana State government a few days ago as a strangest of the strange one, former Union Minister S Jaipal Reddy has alleged that the Bill was an erratic and malicious one. Stating that the Bill should be notified here instead of sending it for endorsement of the President, Jaipal Reddy said the Bill would be buried in the hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Supreme Court.

Speaking to the media at Gandhi Bhavan here on Wednesday,  Jaipal Reddy explained that reservations were made in North India for backward Muslims. He said there was no need for the TRS government to wait for the last three years to implement the reservations for the Muslims if the government was really sincere towards welfare of Muslims. The TRS government created a strange situation that the Bill would not get approval as per the norms of the Constitution as the State government mixed the Muslim Reservations with ST reservations.

Stating that the Congress was welcoming the tribal reservations, Jaipal Reddy said Parliament has to give green signal if any new caste was added to SC or ST reservations. The TRS government created a situation that the differences will crop up between the Hindus and Muslims with the mix of ST and Muslim reservations. He also expressed concern that there was a chance of the Muslims losing the existing four percent reservation with the new Bill of the TRS government.

Condemning the TRS government’s “deceptive” policies, Jaipal Reddy said Tamil Nadu reservations were not permanent. Sarcastically dubbing Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao as a Constitutional expert, Jaipal Reddy said he was not a constitutional expert. Making it clear that the Constitution was for the nation but not created specially for the States, the Congress leader made it clear that the Congress was not against the Muslim reservations. He said he was only exposing the deceptive attitude of the Chief Minister and made it clear that the Congress never stated that the reservations limit should not exceed 50 percent. (NSS)