Andhra announces 4% quota for Muslims

The Andhra Pradesh government today announced 4 per cent reservations for 14 groups of Muslims under the BC-E category both in education and public employment while maintaining the total reservations at 50 per cent. It also adopted the principle of exclusion to avoid judicial intervention.

The state Cabinet which met here on Wednesday also adopted the draft ordinance to this effect to implement reservations for the identified Muslim classes from the current academic year itself. The decision was based on the report submitted to chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy yesterday by the BC Commission, headed by Justice D Sabrahmanyam.

After learning hard lessons at both the high court and Supreme Court, the government shifted its stand. From offering blanket reservations to people based on their religion, it has now categorised backward social groups among Muslims to achieve its goal of implementing an 'election promise'.

However the government also had to partly alter this 'promise' by reducing the percentage of reservations to 4 per cent from 5 per cent to keep the overall reservations to 50 per cent, so as not to attract the earlier judgments of Supreme Court, according to state minority welfare minister Mohommed Ali Shabbir.