‘BJP has double standards towards minority’

Mumbai: The state Congress unit  on Wednesday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had double standards about the minority community and madrasa (Islamic school) education.

The party said that the central government had repackaged its old madrasa modernisation scheme. Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said that when the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government introduced the madrasa modernisation scheme in the state in September 2013, the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party criticised the move calling it minority appeasement.

Addressing a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan, Mr Sawant said, “When the Congress-NCP government brought the madrasa modernisation scheme in the state in September 2013 with a budgetary provision of `10 crore, the then BJP president, state president and current chief minister Devendra Fadnavis opposed the move and also termed the decision unconstitutional. Mr Fadnavis said that the government’s decision was to appease the minority community and the government should not give funds to religious institutions.”

Union minister for minority affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi Tuesday stated that the Union government would provide several scholarships including pre-matric, post-matric and merit-cum-means to five crore students from minority communities in the next five years. The outreach programme included the modernisation of madrasas.

In 2015, the Bharatiya Janata Party-Sena government had decided to de-recognise madrasas as schools. So, the decision of the Union government was a tight slap to the Fadnavis-led government, Mr Sawant said. He said that while the CM always tweeted about the Prime Minister’s decisions, he did not say a single word about this decision of the central government. He questioned Mr Fadnavis’ lack of reaction to the central government decision.