B Bommai On Congress’s Promise For Muslim Quota

Bengaluru: Reacting to Congress leader DK Shivakumar’s promise of cancelling the scrapping of the four per cent Muslim quota after coming to power, Chief Minister Basavraj Bommai said that the Congress party cannot even touch the reservation.

His remarks came after Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar on Friday said, “As soon as our government comes, we will cancel the reservation issue and will protect the minority interest”.

Talking to the mediapersons here on Friday, CM Bommai said, “They (Congress) don’t have clarity in any issue in reservation and policies. They are just raining statements. Let them remove the reservation, they can’t touch it, let us see what they can do”.

He said that the whole ticket selection procedure is going properly in a constitutional way, and the final list will be announced soon.

“I told you on Thursday only, that there will be more aspirants for the ticket as there is a lot of competition. The party will have a meeting on April 8 and 9, and tickets will be distributed on April 10. We have collected the opinions of our party workers, leaders and the people. The final list will also be made accordingly,” he said.

The Chief Minister further said that the Congress party is very “weak” from within and will badly lose the upcoming assembly polls in the state.

“As far as I know, Congress doesn’t have proper candidates even on 60 seats, that’s why they are swapping candidates. They are just making voices, but are weak from the inside. Fights are going on within the party between different factions. They will lose very badly in the coming elections,” CM Bommai added.

The Karnataka government last month scrapped the four per cent OBC reservation for Muslims and distributed it to the two dominant communities, Veerashaiva-Lingayats and Vokkaligas. The government also decided to move OBC Muslims to the 10 per cent Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category.

The Assembly election in Karnataka is scheduled to be held on May 10 and the counting of votes will take place on May 13.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)