CPM wants sub-Plan for Muslims

The CPI (M) wants a sub-Plan for Muslims in the 11th five-year Plan and will shortly approach the government with the demand.

Senior party leaders, who today discussed the reported findings of the Justice Rajinder Sachar panel on the status of Muslims, also decided to set up a committee to prepare a plan to bring the community out of backwardness.

According to CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury, the party will urge state governments to have a fund for developing the skills of Muslims. The party leaders said the Left-ruled states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura would take the lead in this.

The demand comes in the backdrop of reports on the findings of the Sachar panel appointed by the prime minister. The panel is supposed to have taken a serious view of the backwardness of Muslims and has concluded that their condition is worse than Scheduled Castes.

Sources say the UPA government may find it difficult to brush aside the demand, which comes just ahead of the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh where Muslims are a sizeable chunk of the electorate.

"The Deve Gowda government decided to earmark 10 per cent expenditure of all ministries and departments for north-eastern states. It is showing tangible results. We want allocation of resources for the minority community on similar lines," Yechury told Business Standard.

He did nor specify the percentage of allocation the party wanted for Muslims.

The latest demand is apparently an after-thought as the party had not mentioned it in its reply to the approach paper to the 11th Plan that it had sent to the government a few weeks ago.