Click to play videoNew Delhi: The Allahabad High Court on Thursday ruled that Muslims do not constitute a minority in Uttar Pradesh.
Just days before the first phase of polls in the state where Muslims constitute a sizeable votebank- its a ruling that has set off a political outcry.
UP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has already sought legal counsel on the Allahabad High Court judgement.
The government in Lucknow is preparing to get the judgement which takes away the Muslim community's minority status Muslim reviewed.
And it will be done early. The SP leadership believes the party cannot afford to delay the review.
“This is most sad and unfortunate judgement and needs to be reviewed. This judgement will create social inequality,” said SP leader Amar Singh.
The judgement came as a bolt from the blue less than 48 hours before the state goes to the polls.
A single member bench of the High Court ruled that going by the population and strength of the Muslim community it couldn't be accorded the minority status.
No further explanation was provided why the verdict was questioning what has long been assumed to be the obvious. Some of the other mainstream parties were amazed. ]
“I am absolutely surprised by the tenor of this order. We all know that Muslims are minority,” said Congress leader Kapil Sibal.
The BJP was in two minds. The expected response came from this senior leader,
“The minorities are those groups who are one per cent or a half a per cent—the are called minorities. People who form 10 per cent or more of the population in any sense,” said BJP MP V K Malhotra.
But there were others in the party who preferred to tread their political path cautiously.
“We will review the court decision and then comment upon it,” said BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussein.
The verdict has already acquired political dimensions. The BJP is firming up a standpoint that will scrutinise the minority appeasement policies of both the government at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh.
The Congress is demanding that the SP move the review petition without any further delay. The poltical parties are gearing up to use the unexpected judgement for their own political ends.
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