The Opposition Congress on Sunday attacked the BJP government in poll-bound Karnataka over its recent decision to take Muslims off the OBC quota list and include them under the EWS quota, saying it was an attempt to create hostility among communities.

AICC general secretary RS Surjewala, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president DK Shivakumar and Opposition leader Siddaramaiah targeted the Basavaraj Bommai regime, at a media-conference, for its latest quota policy. Never had a state government in 75 years since India’s independence, changed its quota classification three times in three months. This showed the purpose was to deceive different communities, they said.

Bommai’s government’s alleged shifting of the Muslims to the EWS quota was “unconstitutional” as the EWS quota took one’s economic status into account. A member of any caste or religion would anyway be entitled to the EWS reservation based on his or her economic status. “How is the Bommai government then making false claims of shifting Muslims to the EWS quota,” they asked.

The accused the Bommai government of making a re-classification without doing a socio-economic survey or collecting empirical data or a final report of the backward classes commission. This had been done by the BJP deliberately so that the quota policy would remain ensnared in litigations forever.

The policy, the Congress leaders said, had left Lingayats, Vokkaligas, SC/STs and minorities dissatisfied and only exposed the “manipulative politics of the Bommai government.”

The leaders wondered how the Karnataka government would implement its latest reservation policy as it breached the 50% cap laid down by the Supreme Court. Even the Modi government had said on the floor of the Parliament on March 14 this year that the reservation ceiling in Karnataka would not be increased either in Karnataka or anywhere in the country. “So, how will the 56% reservation then be implemented,” they asked.

Siddaramaiah said Muslims enjoyed the 4% quota since May 1995, though they were much larger in population. No committee or the court had asked the government to scrap it, but the BJP had done so now only to stoke enmity among various religious groups.