Omar backs quota for needy Muslims

Kupwara

National Conference leader and former J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah is opposed to the politics of appeasement but says he backs a quota for economically disadvantaged Muslims.

“There is a case for making a quota for the economically disadvantaged within the Muslim community. I’m against a blanket quota, but economically poor Muslims definitely need to be uplifted,” Omar told Hindustan Times in an interview on Monday.

As a prominent face from the country’s only Muslim-majority region, Omar’s remark came in the backdrop of a row over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s repeated charge in his poll speeches that the opposition Congress is plotting to divert the reservation quota of SCs, STs and OBCs to the Muslim community as a part of its votebank-centric appeasement towards minorities.

“I’m the last person to support the politics of appeasement,” Omar said. “But the problem with the BJP is that to show that they are not appeasing Muslims, they are going the other way. They are actually victimising the Muslim community and denying it its rightful claim,” he said.

A candidate from the Baramulla constituency for his fourth contest for the Lok Sabha, Omar said it was a matter of “significant shame” that 14% of the country’s population (Muslims) is not represented by the ruling party either in the Lok Sabha or in the Rajya Sabha. “The Modi cabinet didn’t have a single Muslim face all these years,” he said.

To buttress his point, he referred to the Sachar Committee report which was commissioned during the Congress-led UPA government (2004-14). “Look at any assessment of the economic plight of Muslims, where have they got more than their fair share?” he said, asserting that the community has not been appeased at the cost of any other. “We (the Muslims) are possibly the most downtrodden community in the country.”

On the BJP not contesting any of the three Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir, Omar accused the saffron party of propping up and supporting its “proxies” against the National Conference. “The BJP may not have a symbol in this election in the Valley, but make no mistake, they are very much part of the poll process behind the scenes,” he said, naming Peoples Conference’s Sajjad Lone, his main challenger in Baramulla, People’s Democratic Party led by Mehbooba Mufti and former chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad as “the BJP-aligned parties” of Kashmir.

Terming the first three phases of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections as “a waveless election”, Omar said, “There is no wave either for the government or against it.”

On allegations of dynastic politics against his family, he said the BJP is as guilty as any other party. “One-fifth of the BJP’s tickets in this election have gone to family members of its leaders. Look at how they dropped the tainted Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Singh but gave the ticket to his son. Their problem is with only dynastic parties that oppose them.”