New Delhi, Oct. 25: A buzz about a proposed 10 per cent minority quota countrywide in jobs and education, carved out of the Other Backward Classes’ share in reservation, has angered parties heavily dependent on their OBC vote banks such as those of Lalu Prasad and Ramvilas Paswan.

Although the Centre has not announced any such proposal yet, minority affairs minister Salman Khurshid has hinted about it in the recent past. According to reports, the UPA government plans to set aside a six per cent quota for socially and economically backward Muslims from the 27 per cent OBC reservation, and a four per cent quota for other deprived minorities.

Leaders from Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, Lalu’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party and the Janata Dal (United) are up in arms.

They allege the quotas are part of the Congress's efforts to woo Muslim voters in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh at the expense of the OBCs.

“The Congress is deliberately trying to generate a clash between the OBCs and the Muslims to derive political mileage,” Samajwadi spokesperson and MP Mohan Singh said. He added that the Congress knew very well that the move was certain to invite legal challenges and that nothing would come of it.

India’s Constitution does not allow reservation on the basis of religion, so governments have sometimes tried to carve a minority quota out of the OBC quota to be able to project it as backward reservation. “The Congress has always used Muslims as a vote bank and this time too it is doing the same. It knows very well that reservation for Muslims will be challenged in the courts, as in Andhra and Bengal, leading to non-implementation,” Mohan Singh said.

But Singh and Janata Dal (United) MP Ali Anwar both accused the government of going against key recommendations by Misra. Anwar claimed that the Misra report did not envisage a minority quota carved out of the OBCs’ share.

“The Ranganath Misra report recommended a constitutional amendment to lift the ban on religion-based quotas, identify the underprivileged among the minorities and impart reservation for their uplift. Instead of following it, the government is pitting Muslims against the OBCs,” Anwar said.

He said the government should amend the Constitution to lift the 50 per cent cap on reservations and introduce an independent quota for Muslims and other minorities.