Khaleequr Rahman: Why Muslim Dominated seats are reserved for SC's

Khaleequr Rahman: Why Muslim Dominated seats are reserved for SC's: "It is very surprising and a well planned strategy of the people with the safron colour mind in the government that the most of the Muslim D..."

Why Muslim Dominated seats are reserved for SC's

It is very surprising and a well planned strategy of the people with the safron colour mind in the government that the most of the Muslim Dominated Seats have been reserved for SC's during the delimitation process before the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Unfortunately the muslim leadership was mum on this issue. The very unfortunate part is that the muslims take pride in organising huge rallies, massive public meetings and the next day coverage in the media and then everybody forgets that. What is important is not the show of strength on the cross roads in a public meeting but the numbers in the Assemblies and the Parliament. I would like to quote an example here that at one point of time about two decades ago, there were 29 Muslim MLA;s in Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly and presently the number is reduced to just 11 MLA's. Out of these 11 MLA's, seven are from the city representing the Urban population. In the entire telangana region comprising of 119 Assembly seats, except the seven MLA's from the Hyderabad city, we dont have the muslim representation either in Assembly or in Parliament from any party except the lone Muslim MP from Hyderabad. After independence, the country has achieved the secularism socially but not politically. What is the need of the hour is the Politically Secular Country for the where there is propotionate representation of each community in the State Assemblies and the Parliament. When the delimitation process was underway, our muslim leadership of the country was totally silent and those powerful succeeded in retaining their seats and the others had to sacrifice and lose in the name of the Reservation for SC's. I am not against the reservation of seats for SC's but why only the muslim dominated seats why not the other seats. A peculiar example in Andhra Pradesh in the Telangana region is that of Zaheerabad. Since 1999, a muslim MLA has been getting elected and after the delimination, this seat was reserved for SC and the Muslim MLA who was also a Minister in the Cabinet had become homeless and was dumped into the BJP's den to fight against the sitting BJP MLA.  What do we understand by this. Is this the justice meted out to muslims or is it the conspiracy of the safron brained politicians or the bearueacrats in a very well planned manner to keep the muslim represenation away from the Houses. It is a serious issue and it is high time that our muslim leadership should rise above their political affiliations and raise a collective voice in the parliament and force for reversal of these seats. I firmly believe that the SC's should get their due share but not at the cost of the muslims. SC's cant be blamed for this. Rather, it is the backward classes and SC's who need their due share which they have been getting since independce and we muslims fully support that and at the same time our interests should not be suppressed. I am quite surprised that not even a single MP of any party has raised their voice so far in this regard or even if they have, their voice has been ignored. The election commision should take cognizance of this and since we have the best electoral system in the world, it becomes all the more responsibility of the Election Commission to look into these issues and take the corrective measures which would mean justice.

It’s like killing of two birds with one stone. Constitutional requirement for one community is fulfilled at the cost of the other. Seats are reserved for Scheduled Castes in legislative bodies in the country – a constitutional obligation – but it is done in effect by diminishing the Muslims representation in the very legislatures. It’s an irony that the very constitution debars Muslims from being included in the category of Scheduled Castes. There are scores of assembly and parliamentary constituencies across the country which are reserved for SCs though Muslim population in those constituencies far outnumbers the SCs. The charge of some design against Muslims gets stronger when one finds a number of seats unreserved (general) though SCs are majority community in those constituencies. Six years back, the issue was highlighted by the Sachar Committee. “Another issue emphasized before the Committee was that a number of Parliamentary and Assembly constituencies with substantial Muslim voter population are reserved for SCs while the SC population was not high there. Contrarily, constituencies with comparatively lesser Muslim voter population remain unreserved even though they have sizeable SC population,” says the Sachar Committee Report. Attention of the Committee was drawn to the issue of Muslim concentration assembly constituencies being declared as ‘reserved’ constituencies where only SC candidates can contest elections. By this move, it was argued that Muslims are being systematically denied political participation.

The Sachar Committee went into the issue. While the Committee could not look into the issue of voter lists, an effort was made to ascertain the facts on the issue of reserved constituencies. The analysis relating to the reserved constituencies for the SC candidates in three states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal suggests that there is truth in the allegation. Data relating to the reserved constituencies for the SC candidates in three states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal was analysed by the Committee. These states have a relatively large share of the Muslim population in India. The data shows that constituencies which have been declared reserved for SCs by the Delimitation Commission in these three states are by and large those constituencies where Muslims live in greater numbers often more than 50 per cent as well as their proportion in the population is higher than that of SCs. On the other hand, there are quite a large number of other constituencies within the respective states, where the share of SCs is large, often closer to or even more than one half but these are declared as ‘un-reserved'. Arguably, this can be seen as discriminatory and certainly reduces the opportunities that Muslims have to get elected to democratic institutions.

List of Assembly constituencies with high population of Muslims but reserved for SCs and constituencies with high population of SCs but are unreserved

Assembly seat	Total Population		Muslim Population	SCs Population	STs Population	% of SCs Population	% of Muslim Population
Reserved Assembly Constituencies
Basanti	278592		114736	107602	17462	38.6	41.2
Rajarhat	145381		60108	52233	938	35.9	41.3
Nanoor	193775		64827	61803	3834	31.9	33.5
Kulpi	242752		88230	77380	141	31.9	36.3
Ketugram - I	145859		64975	39011	582	26.7	44.5
Sankrail	290924		92942	73191	1761	25.2	31.9
Keshpur	288489		76866	72536	17012	25.1	26.6
Khargram	234780		120557	55320	1918	23.6	51.3
Sagardighi	252293		156870	44992	16882	17.8	62.2
Kaliganj	290957		161705	49349	1447	17.0	55.6
Un-Reserved Assembly Constituencies
Sitai		96347	26491	64869	8	67.3	27.5
Haldibari		93867	30036	58070	254	61.9	32.0
Jalpaiguri		280927	40519	170394	16774	60.7	14.4
Kaliaganj		190019	39334	114922	8656	60.5	20.7
Khejuri - II		117438	8306	66658	819	56.8	7.1
Kharibari		88230	4128	44863	17099	50.8	4.7
Tufanganj – II		167455	22083	84790	3176	50.6	13.2
Bamangola		127252	11287	63459	25083	49.9	8.9
Gaighata		300588	18841	144293	4401	48.0	6.3
Bongaon		344044	69777	161918	10245	47.1	20.3

The Sachar Committee table is based on data from Election Commission of India, 2004 and Census of India, 2001. It was suggested to the Committee that it would be more equitable to reserve those constituencies where voter population of SCs is high rather than those where it is low and, instead, Muslim presence is high.
And the Sachar Committee had recommended establishing a more rational procedure for delimitation of constituencies.

“The Committee also recommends the elimination of the anomalies with respect to reserved constituencies under the delimitation schemes discussed in Chapter 2. A more rational delimitation procedure that does not reserve constituencies with high minority population shares for SCs will improve the opportunity for the minorities, especially the Muslims, to contest and get elected to the Indian Parliament and the State Assemblies. Apart from these two initiatives it is important to evolve other methods to enhance political participation of the Community,” the Sachar Committee had recommended but it seems no step has been taken in this regard so far. I urge our Muslim MP's to rise above their political affiliationsto raise this issue and fight for justice.



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