Will resist changes to Constitution: Muslim OBC body

Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the All India Muslim OBC Conference declared that the community would resist and prevent any move to change the Constitution or tamper with its basic structure.

The conference saw the presence of top community leaders.

Shabbir Ahmed Ansari, president of the All India Muslim OBC Organisation, said at the 'Samvidhan Samman Samellan' that the threat to the Constitution is not a new thing, that it has been manipulated and disturbed since the early days of the Indian democracy.

"Many of total 123 amendments done to the Constitution of India has hit the basic spirit and essence of the religious equality and have been done with the intention to help the government in power or to support a particular segment of the people in the country," he said.

"The most prominent example of this is the Presidential order given on August 10, 1950 that no person professing any religion other than Hinduism shall be deemed a member of a Scheduled Caste. This patently anti-secular and grossly anti-democratic order was stiffly resisted by Sikh and neo-Buddhist Dalits. Over the years, in the face of strong protests, the Indian state was compelled to extend the Scheduled Caste status to Sikh and neo-Buddhist Dalits. Yet, it continues to deny the status to Christian and Muslim Dalits," added Ansari.

"This is a clear violation of the Constitutional rights of these groups, the numbers of which go into tens of millions. It is a patent act of discrimination on the basis of religion by the Indian state itself, clearly revealing its pro-Hindu bias," he said.

He said that this religions discrimination, which comes under Para 3 of Article 341, should be immediately removed, as recommended by the Ranganath Mishra Commission formed by the UPA government.

"We also demand effective steps for providing representation to backward classes in all spheres of life. The political parties in Maharashtra only used OBC votes to come to power but have never given significant representation to OBCs," he said.

He said the representation of backward classes in local governments, Assembly and Parliament, when compared to their population in the respective states, is very less. He also said political parties must make sure that more OBC candidates win elections.