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Today Date : Friday, October 11, 2024

Exclusion or oversight?Absence of Muslim representation in  Modi's New Cabinet

Exclusion or oversight?Absence of Muslim representation in Modi's New Cabinet

As many as 24 Muslim MPs have been elected in the recently concluded LokSabha elections. 21 of them belong to India alliance. Others include AIMIM chief Owaisi, Jammu & Kashmir independent MP Abdul Rashid Shaikh and Ladakh's Mohammad Hanifa.
Among the 293 members of the LokSabha elected by the National Democratic Alliance, there is not a single person from the Muslim, Christian and Sikh communities.
The Vajpayee-led cabinet had two Muslims as Union Ministers in 1999 and a Muslim Union Minister of State in 1998.In 2004 and 2009, 4 and 5 Muslims were given opportunity in the Congress-led central cabinet respectively.BJP's NajmaHeptullah was the Minister of Minority Affairs when Modi took office for the first time in 2014.
BJP's Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi was the Minority Affairs Minister in the Modi Cabinet in 2019. He was not re-elected after his RajyaSabha term ended in 2022.
In fact, this time (2024) there is not a single Muslim face in the newly formed Union Cabinet while, Sikhs and Christians have been given seats in the Union Cabinet despite losing the LokSabha elections. Likewise, if only one Muslim MP gets a seat in the cabinet, won't the honour of being a secular nation be recognized globally?
We are the one who can say that the world is a family.
Opposition parties including the Congress have been criticizing the allegation that keeping a section of the country's population out of the system will affect the honor of the country.How will the people of the country accept the National Democratic Alliance government led by Prime Minister Modi as the representative of 140 crore Indians? They are also asking questions.
The Union Cabinet can have a maximum of 81 members. So there are many opportunities for PM Modi to include a Muslim in the cabinet.Muslims, who constitute about 14% of the population, are not represented in the cabinet. Let's expect a Muslim minister to take charge in the central cabinet soon to avoid an adverse situation!