Already under pressure on the Women?s Reservation Bill, the Congress is in for fresh trouble with its Rajya Sabha MP Arjun Singh backing the demand for a sub-quota for Muslims in the Bill.
?Concerns of the minority community must be addressed,? he said on Friday, when asked about his views on demands by some political parties and a section of Muslim bodies and clerics to provide a minority sub-quota under the Women?s Reservation Bill.
He, however, parried queries on the demand for a sub-quota for OBCs, saying: ?The party will take a decision. Whatever she (Congress president Sonia Gandhi) says will be done.?
Singh?s sympathy with the ?concerns? of the minority community on the Bill is set to further complicate matters for the party leadership, which is already under pressure on this issue from the Trinamool Congress and the ?Yadav troika? of Lalu Prasad, Mulayam Singh and Sharad Yadav.
Isolated in the party and left out of the UPA government in its second term, Singh had been maintaining a studied silence for some time while he worked on his autobiography, which is likely to be completed by the end of this year.
In the interview though, the former human resource development minister also spoke on the controversy over deemed status to universities. Singh supported his decision to grant deemed status to universities during his tenure?successor Kapil Sibal has withdrawn the status for 44 such universities, many of whom got the deemed tag under Singh.
?All decisions (about granting deemed status) had been taken as per procedure. There was no arbitrary decision. The idea of deemed universities had been initiated by Dr S Radhakrishnan. There is nothing directly related to me,? Singh said.
However, he refused to comment on the other decisions taken by Sibal.
The veteran Congress leader denied being isolated in the party even as he conceded that his opinion was no longer sought for. ?I am available wherever I am. People can believe what they want to. If nobody wants to ask me anything, I have no grudge,? said Singh.