“Why Congress and UPA president Sonia Gandhi is opposing inclusion of Dalit Muslims and Christians in ambit of SC & ST reservation in the Supreme Court?”, he asked.
Talking to this correspondent, he pointed that the Justice Ranganth Mishra Commission report has strongly recommended reservation the Muslim community as a whole and also said that religious bar should be lifted from the Article 341 of the Constitution but the UPA government did not make any forward movement on this.
“It is irony that the same government, which set up the Mishra Commission, is opposing the lifting of religious bar in the Supreme Court which has directed the government to make its stand on the issue,” he quipped.
Describing reservation as the only panacea for addressing backwardness of the community, he said the Samajawadi party was the only party which has come out a clear cut resolution on Muslim reservation asking the government to implement Mishra recommendations.
He also emphasized need of making separate schemes for the Muslims as the experience showed that in the name of minority, the other minority communities have been cornering all benefits. The case in point is Multi- sectoral development scheme for minority concentrated districts (MCDs); he alleged that most of amount of the scheme is being distributed among the RSS affiliates there.
Revealing his own experience during the chairmanship of the Delhi Minority Commission, Farooqui said many hurdles were created by the Delhi government in carrying out schemes for the community. “When I raised the Batla House encounter, I was told that it was not your business, despite that I went ahead,” he said.
He said that he did not spend the money fully during his tenure because some vested interest and the government wanted to spend the money on other non-minority schemes.
On his joining to the Samajawadi party bandwagon, he said he was never a member of the Congress party. When asked that the Samjawadi party’s track record on minority welfare is not encouraging, he said Mulayam Singh was now a changed man and the party would raise the Muslim reservation issue in the monsoon session of Parliament.