Yogi stokes Karnataka poll fever; ‘India not ready for another religion-based partition’
By Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi, April 26: Taking stance on poll pitch laid by Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday said that India is not ready for another religion-based partition. Adityanath hit out at Congress for “appeasement to Muslims” for supporting religion-based reservation.
Shah set the tone of the poll narrative on religion-based reservation, sending out messages in Telangana and Karnataka for the consolidation of the Hindu vote base in favour of the saffron outfit. Shah latched on the ban imposed by the Central government on the Popular Front of India and the Karnataka government scrapping four per cent reservation for Muslims to test the southern political waters.
“The Karnataka government took courageous decision to scrap the religion-based reservation in the interests of the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other backward castes. Congress for the sake of Muslim appeasement is seeking restoration of the religion-based reservation. This will never be allowed,” said Adityanath in his first day out in the campaign trail for the Karnataka Assembly election campaign.
Seeking to blunt Congress charge against the incumbent Basavraj Bommai government in the state, the BJP is now raising the polarization pitch by stressing that four per cent reservation for Muslims was essentially the rightful claims of Lingayatas and Vokkaligas.
The Bommai government, while claiming to have shifted the Muslim quota to the economically weaker section reservation category of 10 per cent, had enhanced the reservation for Lingayata and Vokkaliga by two per cent each. This has currently bene put on hold, as the matter is now sub-judice before the Supreme Court.
The Bommai government had previously enhanced the reservation for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes to make a case for social justice plank for the saffron outfit for the state. Incidentally, Congress government in Telangana in 2004 and Karnataka afterwards had introduced the reservation for Muslims for four per cent each.
“There is no basis for religion-based reservation in the Constitution. Congress is indulging in Muslim appeasement. The country has seen one partition in 1947 in the name of religion. India is not ready for another religion-based reservation,” Adityanath, the Hindutva poster boy of the BJP said on Wednesday.
The UP chief minister also sought to invoke the connection of the Hindi heartland with Karnataka by stressing on “Lord Ram-Hanuman relations”.
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