Not wrong to talk about minority quota: Khurshid

Salman Khurshid may be in the eye of a storm over his Muslim sub-quota remarks, but the unflappable law minister believes it’s not wrong to talk about the minority quota, a constitutional guarantee.

Speaking exclusively to Business Standard in Farrukhabad, from where his wife, Louise, is contesting as a Congress candidate, he said, “Why is it that when I speak for Muslims, it’s termed not secular? When I talk of improving legal services or equal opportunity commission, nobody says that is wrong.”

To Khurshid, the Election Commission (EC) issue is a “closed chapter”. He wrote to the commission expressing regret over his remarks on the minority sub-quota. Whatever the EC felt was not in keeping with its norms, he accepted. He said, “I am not a great one for violation of propriety”.

He dismissed talk of the party censuring him. “Is there anybody bigger than Priyanka Gandhi?” he asked. Gandhi had recently defended Khurshid’s remarks. The law minister said even his Cabinet colleagues Kapil Sibal, Beni Prasad Verma and Ambika Soni, among others, had come out in his support. On party media department chief, Janardan Dwivedi, cautioning him, he said that was indeed not the case and it was the interpretation of the media.

He said he was not mentioning anything special and a ‘sub-quota for backward minorities’ was specifically stated in the Congress manifesto. He asserted a minority quota was a constitutional guarantee and nobody could disregard that.

The Congress leader said while he would continue to talk about a sub-quota for minorities, he would take care to mention the reservation would be “commensurate with their population”, as stated in Congress’ manifesto for Uttar Pradesh.