Let us be clear there is only one party in this Uttar Pradesh election that has actually made a rank communal promise and it is the Rahul Gandhi lead Congress.

What started as 4.5% lollipop has already doubled in to a 9% kebab even before the election started ?

How long before it trebles to a 18% salami ?

It is galling that there has practically been no liberal outrage on this escalating Communalism of the Congress borne out of sheer desperation over Rahul Gandhi’s performance in Uttar Pradesh.

First sample the glee with which the ET Bureau reports this promise for a 9% Muslim Quota within Quota, almost sounding like a cheerleader:

After leaving its rivals in Uttar Pradesh, barring BJP, tongue-tied with its poll-eve announcement of 4.5% minority quota in central jobs, Congress has flashed yet another ace by wooing the community with the promise of 9% reservation, also within the existing 27% OBC quota, in state government jobs if voted to power

Next Sample this:

- More Columns have been written and TV Studio discussions have been held on a Cow Slaughter legislation in Madhya Pradesh passed two years ago than on a Muslim Sub-Quota in Uttar Pradesh. The irony of course there is no election in Madhya Pradesh. The hypocrisy of course is there wasn’t even the semblance of a murmur on this law for the past two years.

- More polls have been conducted on a proposal calling for more debate on a proposed after-school optional program to teach Gita in Karnataka than on the doubling of the Muslim Sub-Quota in Uttar Pradesh. The irony of course is it is just “a proposal to debate a proposal” and no after-school programs in Karnataka are not on the ballot in Uttar Pradesh. The tragedy of course not even the schools of Uttar Pradesh are on the ballot in Uttar Pradesh with real issues taking a backseat.

In its desperation to go one up over the Samajwadi Party and the traction its young leader Akhilesh Yadav is getting from the Muslim community, the Rahul Gandhi lead congress today went out of its way to expand the ambit of a quota within a quota for Muslims in Uttar Pradesh.

Wooing Muslim voters, Union law minister Salman Khurshid said the Congress party would provide nine per cent sub-quota for backward Muslims if it was voted to power in the coming Uttar Pradesh assembly election.

The Congress leader promised this while addressing a poll meeting on Sunday in Farrukhabad assembly constituency from where his wife Louise is contesting.

Khurshid said the Congress would provide nine per cent reservation for backward Muslims within the existing OBC quota in UP in the event of its forming the government in the state.

He said more than eight castes such as Mansoori and Qureshi would benefit from such a move.

He reminded the voters that the UPA government at the Centre had already taken a decision to provide 4.5 per cent reservation for minorities within the existing 27 per cent OBC quota.

The desperation to lock in the Muslim vote is understandable given the skepticism with which the Muslim voters of western UP have been viewing this belated attempt at appeasement by the Congress:

The calibrated projection of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son Akhilesh as the campaign leader is doing to the Samajwadi Party what the Congress had hoped Rahul Gandhi’s foregrounding would do.

Conversations with Muslims and youths in some crucial districts of the first-phase belt in Uttar Pradesh suggest the two principal constituencies are tilting more towards the Samajwadis than the Congress.

“The Congress has forced an artificial divide in the community. Nobody openly thought in casteist terms but the parlance we use is are you an upper caste, an OBC or a Dalit Muslim?”

There is nothing new about certain Muslim communities being the beneficiaries of OBC quota in certain states. What is however disturbing is the dogged attempt by the Congress to Institutionalize sub-quotas based on Religion.

This dogged attempt at injecting Communalism into the Uttar Pradesh campaign by the Congress is both deliberate and dangerous.

It is deliberate in its sinister hope that a backlash would provoke violence thus triggering yet another consolidation of the Muslim vote out of fear.

It is dangerous in the precedent it sets for permanent religious quotas while quietly burying the original rationale for why Quotas where created by the Constitution Framers in the first place.

We must also fear this Politics of Quota inside Quota for the kind of Muslim Fundamentalism it might foster in response to what some see as anti-Islamic caste designations.

The saving grace in this reckless attempt at Communal Engineering in Uttar Pradesh is perhaps the sagacity and the wisdom of the Muslim voter who is no longer easily taken by the bogey of fear or the lure of appeasement. Whether that sagacity and wisdom will ultimately hold out come polling day, remains to be seen.

But the hypocritical and shameless Liberal discourse can be relied upon to do everything in its power to foster that bogey of fear while choosing to remain silent on that lure of appeasement.

This post first appeared on the author's blog. You can follow him @offstumped

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