Dear Shri Karat,
           I have taken special note of the special section of your party’s Manifesto relating to minorities. I am happy that you have mentioned the need to formulate a Special Component Plan for the minorities, which, I presume, will cover all social and economic development schemes at the grass root level.
However, I do not agree with you that to uplift Muslim population only districts of Muslim concentration should be targeted, because in fact Muslim status is more depressed in districts where their population is small.  In any case, in the 90 selected districts the total Muslim population comes to only about 30% of the national Muslim population.  How can it be correct to leave out 70%?

I also feel glad that you have asked for the publication of the Report of Ranganath Mishra Commission Report and a debate there on to create a national consensus.  I do not see why the Government sat on it for nearly two years.  You might have noticed that the Mishra Report has not found even a mention in the Congress Manifesto. 

Your Manifesto speaks of immediate measures for’ all OBC Muslims’.  Perhaps you mean Muslims sub-communities in various states who have been included in the Central or State Lists of OBCs.  But you ignore the fact that many Muslim OBCs have been left out as pointed out by the Sachar Committee.  Secondly, the Sachar Committee has said that the level of backwardness of the Muslim community as a whole is higher than that of non-Muslim OBCs.  So the entire Muslim community deserves to be recognized as a BACKWARD CLASS.  This implies that the Supreme Court’s irrational ceiling of 50% has to be reviewed not only for the sake of the Muslim community, but to accommodate the rising population of SC/ST and demands from pockets of backwardness among the higher castes which is being raised. 

Regarding the bank credit perhaps you are not aware that on the average out of 15% allocation for the minorities in priority sector leading only 2% has gone to the Muslims!  So, I am glad that your Manifesto speaks of earmarking 15% for the Muslim youth. 

We are also glad that your Manifesto speaks about promotion of teaching Urdu in schools, but what is most important is the constitutional mandate that Urdu should be the medium of primary instruction for all Urdu speaking students (like all other Mother Tongues).

I may add that according to Nitish Sengupta Report nearly 84% of the Muslims fall in the most impoverished groups.  The Bill passed by the Parliament at the fag end does not provide social security and needs to be totally revised to provide effective social security for the unorganized labour which form the vast majority of the people. 

We have one point of difference with you related to reservation for women which must be dovetailed into the existing reservation for SC/ST, to which separate shares for the other groups namely high castes, minorities and non-Muslim OBCs may be added.
Regards