After Maharashtra Assembly passes quota bill, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi demands reservation for Muslims

Mumbai: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday demanded quota for Muslims, hours after the Maharashtra legislature passed a bill proposing 16 percent reservation in education and government jobs for Marathas. The AIMIM said Muslims, too, deserve benefits of the reservation system as they have “lived for generations in poverty.” In a tweet, the Lok Sabha from Hyderabad said depriving backward Muslims of their fair share in public employment and education was a grave injustice. [caption id=“attachment_5182761” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File photo of AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi. AFP[/caption] “I have consistently argued that there are backward castes in Muslims who have lived for generations in a cycle of poverty. Reservation is a tool that will break this cycle,” he stated. AIMIM legislator from Maharashtra Imtiaz Jaleel questioned the BJP-led government’s “indifferent” attitude towards the minority community. “The state government has shown an indifferent attitude towards the Muslims by completely ignoring their valid demands for 5 percent reservation in education which was endorsed even by the High Court,” Jaleel said. He said the “hurriedly” passed Bill for reservation to Marathas mentions the backwardness of the community on the basis of findings by a government-appointed commission. “Going by the same logic, the plight of Muslims who have been regarded as socially, educationally and economically backward by three commissions - the Sachhar Commission, the Ranganath Mishra Commission and the Mehmood Rehman commission - should also have been given the same benefits as those being given to Marathas,” he said. “But irrespective of which party is in power nobody cares for the welfare and upliftment of minorities,” Jaleel claimed. He said the previous Congress-NCP government “cheated” the community by not giving them reservations while in power for 15 years and now the BJP-Shiv Sena administration is ignoring the community’s legitimate demands which is “highly condemnable”.