The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : BJYM against quota for all religious minorities

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 09, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

BJYM against quota for all religious minorities

By Our Staff Reporter

VIJAYAWADA, AUG. 8. The youth wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), has said it is opposed to reservation not only for Muslims but also for other religious minorities in the country.

"The Constitution is clear that reservations must be provided on the basis of social and economic backwardness. Trying to push in other criteria, like religion, is wholly illegal," the BJYM national president and MP, Dharmendra Pradhan, said at a news conference here on Sunday.

Protest planned

He said the morcha would chalk out a nationwide agitation programme to compel the Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy Government to withdraw the controversial order granting 5 per cent reservation to Muslims in jobs and professional courses.

Alleging that the move was aimed at appeasing minorities as part of "narrow vote-bank politics," Mr. Pradhan claimed that the "anti-appeasement fortnight," being observed in the State between July 26 and August 9, was evoking a good response.

Employment generation

He accused the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government of adopting "anti-youth and anti-employment" policies after coming to power. Quoting the Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, as saying the previous NDA Government had created 84 lakh jobs a year during its five-year regime, Mr. Pradhan said the UPA Government had not undertaken a single employment generation programme.

He said the Centre's decision to remove Swami Vivekananda's portrait along with that of Deendayal Upadhaya from the Nehru Yuva Kendra premises had hurt the sentiments of lakhs of young people in the country.

Awareness programme

Mr. Pradhan said the BJYM would soon take up a mass awareness youth programme in the country on Suraksha and Swabhiman (security and self-respect). Besides imbibing a "spirit of nationalism" and self-respect among young people, the programme would prepare young people to fight the Government's "anti-youth" policies, he said.

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