Reservations for Muslims need of the hour Asaduddin Owaisi

PUNE Feb 5, 2015(Agency) The Muslim community in Maharashtra should be given reservations not on religious but based on social backwardness, said Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi here on Wednesday. Owaisi, president of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen was speaking at a public function organized by Mulnivasi Manch and Maharashtra Action Committee on the issue of reservation at Kausarbaugh hall in Kondhwa. Aurangabad MLA Imtiaz Jaleel, Mumbai MLA Waris Yusuf Pathan, justice (retd) B G Kolse-Patil among others were present on the occasion.Owaisi said the BJP and Shiv Sena were opposed to reservation and that the Devendra Fadnavis-led Maharashtra government had refused to introduce a bill to



replace the ordinance that was brought by the Congress-NCP government on Muslim reservation. He said that MIM wasn't opposing Maratha reservation, but only pointing out the "double standards" of BJP, which tabled the Maratha reservation bill, but withheld the Muslim reservation bill on flimsy grounds. He also hit out at the Congress and NCP for "fooling" the community for 15 years only with rhetoric and symbolism. "Our youths want jobs and education. Reservations to Muslim is the need of the hour. We have requested Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis to make a budgetary provision of Rs 3,000 crore for the progress and development of Muslims and other minority communities in the state," he added.