By IANS,
Farrukhabad (Uttar Pradesh)/New Delhi : Triggering a fresh controversy after he was censured by the Election Commission over promise of nine percent quota for minorities, Congresss leader Salman Khurshid has said he will ensure rights to “pasmanda (backward Muslims)” even if he is “hanged” by the poll panel.
Khurshid’s comments, made at an election rally Friday night, evoked strong reaction from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which said the union minister was resorting to vote bank politics.
Referring to the poll panel’s censure against him Thursday, Khurshid said he had not been even allowed to say that he will give the “pasmanda” their dues.
“If they want to hang me, let them hang me. Let them hang me on the issue that Salman Khurshid had made a mention of pasmanda people. Whereever my blood will fall, new warriors will come up from that blood… But we will change the fortune of the poor. Whether there is Election Commission or not, we will change the fortune of the poor… I keep my case in your court,” Khurshid said.
He said that the fate of the poor was in the hands of the people.
“If the deprived, the hungry, the pasmanda sections do not get their due, who else will? Should I say the rich will get their due, the notorious will get their due. How can I say (that),” he said.
The EC had censured Khurshid over his promise to give nine percent quota to minorities, including backward Muslims, within 27 percent reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) if Congress is voted to power in Uttar Pradesh.
It had termed Khurshid’s remarks, made last month during campaigning for for his wife Louise, as a violation of moral code of conduct.
The BJP, which had complained against Khurshid to the poll panel, said Saturday that the minister was resorting to vote bank politics.
Party leader Arun Jaitley said that OBCs had been provided 27 percent reservation on the basis of social and educational backwardness.
“What was the need to state it (nine percent sub-quota) before the Uttar Pradesh elections… religion-based reservation has been attempted only for vote bank politics,” he said.