UP govt excluding minorities from welfare scheme: SP MP Javed Ali Khan in Rajya Sabha

New Delhi: Samajwadi Party MP Javed Ali Khan on Thursday accused the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh government of "deliberately" excluding minorities from a state scheme extending grants for economically weaker OBCs for their daughter's wedding.

Raising the issue in Rajya Sabha's Zero Hour, he cited a letter from Sambhal district administration inviting him for a meeting to disburse the grant, which said the programme is for “OBCs (excluding minorities)”. The letter was issued by Sambhal's Backward Welfare Department.

“As per the Constitution, we are a welfare state and a secular country. By welfare state, we mean that the state will work for upliftment of Dalit and Backward classes and by secular we mean that the state will not discriminate on the basis of religion,” he said.

He said such orders excluding minorities who are marked as OBCs by the UP government violates the Constitution. He said OBC classification is not based on religion and it is based on their backwardness. 

Khan also said he raised the issue with the UP Social Welfare Minister as well as the Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister but there was no relief.

Outside the House, Khan said the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government had earlier started an exclusive programme for minorities in which a financial grant of Rs 30,000 each was allotted for marriage of the girls and a similar scheme for OBCs who are not minorities. 

However, he claimed, all welfare schemes for minorities were scrapped by the Yogi Adityanath-led government when it took over in 2017. It is natural to accommodate minorities in other programmes when schemes for them were scrapped, he said adding such orders are a "direct attack" on the minorities.