"To promote the minorities is our commitment and responsibility. We respect the Andhra Pradesh High Court order like we respect all court orders but we will fulfil the promises we had made in our party manifesto," party spokesperson Rashid Alvi told reporters.
Justifying the Centre's decision to carve out 4.5 per cent sub-quota to minorities from within OBC quota, Law Minister Salman Khurshid said the government will go to the Supreme Court by way of a Special Leave Petition against the Andhra Pradesh HC order.
The Andhra Pradesh High Court had on Monday struck down its 4.5 per cent sub-quota to minorities within OBC reservation in central educational institutions and jobs saying that the decision was based on religious grounds.
Dismissing Law Minister Salman Khurshid's assertion that the central government will challenge the HC verdict, BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said, "To bring in a category based on religion is not sustainable....The Congress is misleading, particularly the minorities.,"
Bihar Chief Minister and JD-U leader Nitish Kumar said in Patna "Congress' intention for giving reservation to Muslims is not pure and the party is raising the issue to mislead them."
CPI leader D Raja said the Union government was "not clear" on the policy of reservation and that it "must understand that reservation cannot be given on the basis of religion."
Khurshid, had, however argued that the term minority does not denote only religion but is also linguistic and the 4.5 percent reservation was not given on religion basis.