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BJP to oppose “communal budgeting”

NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh has instructed all State Chief Ministers of the party to oppose any move to allocate separate funds for welfare and development of minorities.

In a statement here on Tuesday, he made it clear that the BJP-led governments in various States would try and block any step that Wednesday’s National Development Council meeting might take to implement the recommendations based on the findings of the Sachar Commission that Muslims are at the bottom of the economic heap and have low social development indicators, only marginally better than the Scheduled Castes.

Mr. Singh said “communal budgeting” would “sow the seeds of discord, disharmony and disintegration”. A critical vision document such as the 11th Plan should set the tone and direction for national growth and development for the next five years, he added. Any attempt to allocate separate resources on the basis of the religion of a certain section of the population would “give fillip to competitive communal demands for budgetary allocations and, in the process, the holistic approach to national development would become a casualty.”

BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar told reporters that the party had no problem with special allocation for disadvantaged groups decided on the basis of caste or gender, for that kind of affirmative action was rooted in the Constitution. But there was no place for positive action for Muslims or other minorities. The BJP had not questioned the findings of the Sachar Commission, but believed there was no need to set up a commission exclusively to get at the truth about the social and economic status of Muslims.

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