JD(U) slams Khurshid's quota stand

New Delhi: JD(U) today slammed Law Minister Salman Khurshid for his remarks against the controversy surrounding his statement on granting 9 percent quota for minorities in Uttar Pradesh and accused Congress of raising non-issues in the election campaign. Accusing the Congress of becoming “restless” in the run up to the Uttar Pradesh polls, party chief Sharad Yadav also targeted Rahul Gandhi over the issue of delay in passing the new Land Acquisition Act and his recent move to woo weavers in the state. [caption id=“attachment_181704” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Law Minister Salman Khurshid. Image courtesy PIB”]  [/caption] “He (Khurshid) is speaking against the Constitution and the law. We condemn the kind of language that he (Khurshid) has used against the Election Commission. No minister has far tried to tarnish EC’s image like this. He could have expressed his views in his reply to the EC notice. We strongly condemn the dismissive attitude he has shown (towards the poll body),” Yadav told reporters in New Delhi. Khurshid, who has courted controversy for his statement on granting 9 percent quota for minorities, today said he had no regrets as he had not done anything unlawful. “No. Why should I regret? You regret when you do something unlawful,” he told reporters while emerging from a meeting of the Group of Ministers on Bhopal gas tragedy. Khurshid had made the promise of nine per cent sub-quota for Muslims within the existing 27 percent OBC quota while canvassing for his wife Louise in Uttar Pradesh’s Farrukhabad constituency. He was slapped with a notice on Tuesday by the Election Commission which held that prima facie his promise on sub-quota for backward muslims within existing 27 percent OBC quota was “serious violation” of the model code of conduct. The minister replied to the notice yesterday in which he defended his statement by citing the 2009 Congress poll manifesto in which the party had promised to provide for a sub-quota for minorities. “Rahul Gandhi had toured Bhatta Parsaul village and repeatedly raised the issue of farmers, but the promised land acquisition act is no where in sight. 32 to 33 farmers are still in jail. Just before the elections, he has also remembered the weavers because they are in sizable numbers in the state,” Yadav said. He also took a jibe at the Centre for the recent Cabinet directive to the ministries to fill the backlog vacancies in the SC/ST categories, saying “it were they who first did not fill up the vacancy and will now do it before the elections”. Labelling Congress as “anti-reservationist”, he said even late Rajiv Gandhi had opposed reservation in a debate in Lok Sabha. “But now it is they (Congress), who are raising these issues mostly to gain success in Uttar Pradesh elections,” the JD(U) chief alleged. Yadav’s party, which is contesting on all 403 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh after its alliance talks with BJP failed, today released its second list of 148 candidates. It had earlier candidates for 32 seats on 4 January. The JD(U) said his party would strive to make development the axis of its poll campaign in Uttar Pradesh and will present before people the example of Nitish Kumar ruled Bihar as well as the party’s clean political history. Asked about the failure of JD(U) and BJP in stitch out an alliance, he said, “We could not arrive at an agreement with BJP on alliance. I don’t want to say who was at fault for it.” He at the same time added that when Atal Behari Vajpayee and L K Advani used to be involved in such things, it was easier for JD(U) to talk on these matters. The party had given a demand list of 53 seats to BJP and was ready to even bring down its demand. Its only request to BJP was that the latter should not announce candidates on these seats till the talks were finalised, but BJP chose to announce candidates on even those seats to which it had the strongest claims, a JD(U) leader said speaking on the condition of anonymity. PTI