Muslims population is not more than 20 crore: Asaduddin Owaisi

Citing a news report on Smriti Irani’s reply to a question on the population of Muslims in India, in Lok Sabha, Owaisi remarked that even though the Union minister said that the Muslim population ‘won’t exceed 20 crore’, right- wing groups, who he termed as ‘Shakhaputra Sanghis’, believe that India will be a Muslim majority in a few years, and this “evil propaganda demonises Muslims”.

“If they don’t understand basic maths, I hope they atleast believe @narendramodi’s govt,” he said.

Irani responded to the Hyderabad MP’s tweet correcting him that the newspaper article doesn’t say ‘won’t exceed’ anywhere.

“Sir kindly check the report you have used in the image ; it does not use the phrase ‘won’t exceed ‘. I’m sure you don’t want to mislead,” she



tweeted.

Responding further, Owaisi said that the minister’s report says that the Muslim population is 19.7 cr in 2023 “obviously means that it hasn’t exceeded 20 cr. “The math remains the same, I’m sure you don’t want to quibble over mere semantics,” he remarked, adding pictures of several other media reports on the subject.

Smriti Irani told Lok Sabha on Thursday that the Muslim population in India is estimated to be 19.7 crores by 2023.

According to the 2011 census, the Muslim community accounted for 14.2 percent of the total population and according to Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data, the literacy rate among Muslims aged seven years and above was 77.7 percent, while the labour force participation rate stood at 35.1 percent.