By Muslim Mirror News,
New Delhi, March 29: Delhi-based senior AMU alumni, who are lobbying hard in power corridors here these days for proportionate budgetary allocation for minorities at par with SC and ST, have demanded the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre to stop its politics of tokenism and do something sincere and concrete for genuine socio-economic and educational development of the 18% of the national population.
AMU alumni P Mohammad and Mohammad Aslam, who earlier this week met Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s secretary RS Gujral at North Block regarding the low budgetary allocation for minorities, today demanded the UPA regime to come out with firm budgetary proposals and law in case of Minority Indians also. They were reacting on a news report in Times of India today (Friday) which says “The Centre Govt, is thinking over a law to ensure that 22.5% of the Budget is exclusively spent for dalit and tribal welfare, a move seen as an outreach to the Congress support base.”
The AMU alumni said: “In case of Minority Indians with a population parentage of around 18% of Indian Population, Government is playing a politics of Tokenism by allocating very minuscule amount of Rs 3,511 Crore. The Muslim population among the minority Indians constitute around 14% of total Indian population with a history of a strong support base of Congress after Independence.”
They also appealed to all secular Indians “to raise and sensitize this issue in most secular and democratic manner so that this issue can be heard by policy makers in Delhi and the similar initiatives must be started in line with SC/ST budgetary spending by current UPA Regime.”
They urged Muslim and other secular MPs and politicians to discuss this issue seriously as younger generation of the Muslim community is concerned only about education, health and employment; they are no more interested in issues like Babri Masjid, Urdu and Personal Law.
“We would like to call a meeting of all MPs from Minority Indians and other Secular MPs across the party line to discuss this issue further as younger generation of Muslim Indians are only concerned about Modern Education, Health, Employment and Rule of Law and We are no way interested to invest all our energy in Babri Mosque, Personal Law, Triple Talaque and Urdu etc,” said senior AMU alumni P Mohammad and Mohammad Aslam.