Date:02/03/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/03/02/stories/2005030205361100.htm

National

Budget has communal slant, says BJP

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MARCH 1. The Bharatiya Janata Party today alleged that the budget was "communal" as the Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, had talked about the Government paying the fees for special coaching for Muslim students.

"The United Progressive Alliance Government's minorityism came through the budget. When he said that the Government would pick up the tab for the tuition fees for Muslim students getting admission in special coaching classes that meant that the Government would pay for even rich Muslim students. What about Hindu boys and girls from families below the poverty line," the BJP spokesperson and deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, V.K. Malhotra, asked.

When a reporter asked him whether he considered the budget communal, he said: "Yes, it is one."

He also found fault with the Finance Minister's talk of locating special schools and anganwadis (for pre-school children) in places where the minorities lived in large numbers. "In Muslim countries, the minorities are discriminated against. Here, the Hindus have to suffer," he said. All admissions or fellowships and scholarships should be based on merit.

Mr. Malhotra criticised Mr. Chidambaram for saying that the Government would try to appoint more teachers for Urdu as it was the language of many Muslim students and adequate teaching facilities were not available. In the run up to the Lok Sabha elections the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had announced that his Government, if re-elected, would appoint "three lakh Urdu teachers." "Recently, of the 5,400-odd constables recruited in Assam, 40 per cent were Muslims. We criticise this strongly.