New Delhi: Amid raging controvery on the issue of reservation for Muslims, Congress on Monday said it was opposed to reservation based on religion.
"What Veerappa Moily and Antulay have said is not new. The party has been advocating reservation to all socially and educationally backwards irrespective of any religion," party spokesman Satyavrat Chaturvedi told reporters at the AICC briefing.
Minister for Minority Affairs A R Antulay had favoured inclusion of Dalit Muslims and Christians in the reserved category of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
Chairman of Administrative Reforms Commission, Veerappa Moily, had also said that reservation for Muslims should have been part of the Constitution.
Chaturvedi clarified that though Congress had favoured reservation for all backward people in the party manifesto for the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the party was opposed to religion based reservation.
He said that since Congress has not come to power on its own and was part of a coalition, it would consult with all coalition partners before taking any decision on the Supreme Court's order on reservation to SCs, STs and OBCs in educational institutions.
Asked whether the Government will take recourse to Constitutional amendments in view of the Supreme Court verdict on reservation, Chaturvedi said there would be open options available for that too.
Responding to a question, Chaturvedi clarified that Union Minister of State for Home Sri Prakash Jaiswal had never stated that Uttar Pradesh was likely to be placed under the President's Rule.
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