Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar’s recent comments regarding the modification of the Constitution to facilitate Muslim reservations have ignited a huge political row. The BJP has strongly opposed his comments, criticizing him for trying to bring in religion-based reservations, which they assert go against the constitutional idea of secularism.
Shivakumar made it clear that his statement had been misquoted. He assured that he never supported reservations based on religion but was emphasizing affirmative action to better backward communities. “My comment was about achieving social justice to marginalized communities and not about classifying reservations into religious lines,” he stated.
Top leaders of Congress supported Shivakumar and said the reservation policy is not on religious lines but on social and economic backwardness. Top Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge spoke up for Shivakumar, saying the Constitution permits reservations to backward classes based on the socio-economic condition and not on religious lines.
The BJP, however, did not miss the chance to pounce on Congress. Senior BJP leader and former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai accused Congress of attempting to “divide the country along religious lines.” BJP spokesmen contended that Shivakumar’s remarks are an indication of Congress’s age-old policy of minority appeasement. “Granting reservations on the basis of religion will lead to constitutional chaos,” Bommai cautioned.
The row comes at a time when Congress is facing internal turmoil in Karnataka. The state government recently had to face a honey-trap scandal involving a minister, and this added to the party’s woes. Political analysts are of the view that the BJP is resorting to the Shivakumar row as a way to attack Congress in the run-up to elections.
While so, in Delhi, the newly installed BJP government under Chief Minister Rekha Gupta is getting set to table its maiden budget. Political pundits are of the opinion that the BJP would employ the Shivakumar controversy to polarize Congress as a religion-oriented party, thus making a bearing on voters.
The political ramifications of Shivakumar’s comment are likely to make headlines for the next few weeks, with Congress and BJP preparing for an intense political duel.
