No decision yet on 5 per cent Muslim quota: Maharashra Minister Eknath Shinde

Leaders of the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) -- which comprises Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress -- will take a call on the issue after discussions, Shinde said.

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Mumbai: Shortly after NCP leader and his cabinet colleague Nawab Malik stated that the Maharashtra government will provide five per cent quota to Muslims, Urban Development Minister and senior Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde said no such decision had been taken on the issue yet.

Leaders of the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) -- which comprises Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress -- will together take a call on the issue after discussions, Shinde, Urban Development Minister and a senior Sena leader said. "Leaders of the MVA will together take a call on policy decisions about giving reservation to any community. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will take appropriate decisions at the appropriate time. No decision has been taken yet," he said.

Malik, who is the Minority Affairs Minister, had on February 28 announced in the Legislative Council that the government had proposed to provide five per cent reservation to Muslims in educational institutes. "The High Court had given its nod to give 5 per cent reservation to Muslims in government educational institutions. The previous government did not take any action on it. So we have announced that we will implement the HC's order in the form of law as soon as possible,’’ Malik said.

Malik, whose Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is one of the three alliance members of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, said they are also planning to make room for reservation in jobs and the government is seeking legal advice for it. "We will try to give reservation to Muslims in education by the end of this (assembly) session. We will try to give 5 per cent reservation," the Minister from Sharad Pawar's party said.

Earlier this month, Congress-NCP leaders had said that they would explore legal options to provide job quotas also for the backward Muslims in the state. It was in mid-2014 that the then Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government announced 16 per cent reservations to Marathas and five per cent to Muslims in government educational institutions and jobs to the two communities which comprise 32 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively, of the state`s 11 crore population.

The move was strongly criticised by the then opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Later, after the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance with Devendra Fadnavis as Chief Minister took office in late 2014, the matter went into cold storage. The BJP-Shiv Sena government which followed enacted a law for Maratha reservation but dropped the Muslim quota.

In December 2018, after a series of agitations when the Marathas quotas were being finalised, Fadnavis had accused the then opposition Congress-NCP of misleading the Muslims on the issue of quotas.