HYDERABAD, India, 25 July 2007 — The Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly on Monday night adopted the bill providing for four percent reservations for socially and educationally backward classes of Muslims after the Congress government refused to support the nonofficial amendments moved by Majlis-e-Ittehaadul Muslimeen (MIM) to extend the benefit of reservations to the entire Muslim community, barring creamy layer, and to retain the quantum of reservations for the community at five percent.
When panel Chairman Nadendla Manohar put the bill to vote, MIM floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi pressed for division after the government did not respond to his request to incorporate the amendments suggested by his party as official amendments to the bill.
The panel chairman, thereafter, put the bill to vote, clause by clause, including the amendments suggested by MIM. The amendments were lost and the bill was passed in the shape it was introduced.
Replying to the debate on the bill, Minister for Minorities’ Welfare Mohammed Ali Shabbir said the government decided to provide four percent reservations for the 15 identified groups of “socially and educationally” backward Muslims in professional educational institutions and public employment.
Shabbir recalled the Congress party’s electoral promise to provide five percent reservations to Muslims and the two attempts made by the government to fulfill this assurance in 2004 and 2005. “We have the commitment, but there are certain constraints,” he said, justifying the present bill to provide reservations to 15 groups of socially and educationally backward Muslims and earmark only four percent for the purpose.
He said the government had issued a government order in 2004 and promulgated an ordinance and replaced it with a legislative enactment in 2005 earmarking five percent reservations for Muslims but on both occasions, the state high court struck down the Muslim reservations on different grounds.
Thereafter, a fresh exercise was undertaken by adviser to government P.S. Krishnan and the AP Backward Classes Commission which recommended reservations for only the identified socially and educationally backward Muslim groups.
The Muslim “groups” included in the Backward Class “E” category are Achchukattalavandlu, Attar Saibulu, Dhobi, Fakir, Garadi, Gosangi, Guddi Eluguvallu, Hajjam, Labbi, Pakeerla Borewale, Qureshi, Shaikh, Siddi, Chakke Takera and other Muslim groups.
However, groups like Syed, Mushaik, Mughal, Pathan, Irani, Arab, Bohra, Shia Imami Ismaili Khoja, Kutchi-Memon, Jamayat and Navayat and all the synonyms and sub-groups of these groups are excluded from the purview of the four percent reservations.
Apart from the ruling Congress, the opposition parties — CPI-M, CPI, Telangana Rashtra Samithi and Janata Party — supported the bill and MIM suggested amendments. Telugu Desam Party members were suspended from the assembly and they could thus not participate in the debate on the Bill. BJP was the lone party opposing the bill. BJP member G. Kishen Reddy staged a walkout in protest against the bill before its passage.
