Amit Shah's Old Comment on Removal of Muslim Reservations Peddled As Recent Ones

Amit Shah spoke about this while campaigning in Telangana during the Assembly elections in November 2023.

A post is going viral on social media platforms with the claim that Union Home Minister and Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) leader Amit Shah said that their party will remove "4% Muslim reservation & will distribute it among the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. (sic)"

• The post also read that the BJP will do justice to SC, ST and OBCs community.

This post recorded 1 Million views at the time of writing this story. (Archives of similar claims can be found here, here and here.)

Is this true?: The claim is misleading as Shah's statement is not recent.

• Shah had made this remark while campaigning for the Telangana elections in November 2023.

How did we find out?: We ran a relevant keyword search using the following terms: "amit Shah 4% Muslim reservation SC, ST and OBC."

• We came across two videos by ANI and the Hindustan Times from November 2023.

• HT noted Amit Shah said that the BJP would eliminate 4 per cent of Muslim reservations and instead increase reservations for OBCs, STs, and SCs if voted to power in Telangana.

Similarly, ANI also reported that Amit Shah promised to abolish four percent Muslim reservation in Telangana if BJP came to power.

With another keyword search, we came across a post on X (formerly Twitter) by the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM).

They posted a video of Shah campaigning and captioned it, "BJP’s Double Engine government will remove the unconstitutional Muslim reservation in Telangana." (sic.)

Union home minister Amit Shah made the announcement during a campaign speech in Telangana, while announcing reservations for the Madiga community under the SC category.

BJP’s Double Engine government will remove the unconstitutional Muslim reservation in Telangana.@AmitShah @BJP4Telangana pic.twitter.com/oDVieuwHPh

— BJYM (@BJYM) November 28, 2023

• The Times of India reported on 20th November 2023 that the BJP had declared its intention to remove the four percent reservation for Muslims in Telangana and allocate it to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes.

Recent statements on Muslim reservations: This claim has surfaced at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi's public statement on 24 April at a rally in Madhya Pradesh, alleging that the Congress party had introduced reservation based on religion in Karnataka by including all Muslim castes alongside the OBCs.

• This move deprived a significant portion of reservation from the OBC community, he said.

• The Congress has engaged in this practice, which is anticipated to have detrimental effects on future generations, making it the OBCs' enemy, Modi said, as per The Hindu.

Conclusion: An old comment of Amit Shah is being falsely shared as recent on social media platforms.

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