Restructuring the minority student scholarship will not reduce the benefits of those who are already receiving it, clarified Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday, amid rising concern over the proposed change. The restructuring was necessitated after the High Court asked the government to include those minority groups who were earlier not adequately considered under the scholarship scheme. The CM said that it will be done in accordance with the HC direction.
However, it was not going to result in any reduction in benefits to those groups who were already receiving the scholarship, he asserted.
He said that Leader of the Opposition VD Satheesan had initially accepted the government's decision and only changed his stance due to the way the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) reacted, which was not an appropriate reaction.
VD Satheesan, who had initially said that the government's decision did not bring any loss to the Muslim community, was criticised by the IUML. ET Muhammed Basheer, an IUML Member of Parliament, said that Satheesan was 'patently wrong', reports The Hindu. Following this, VD Satheesan changed his stance and said that the new scholarship scheme did, in fact, cost the community dearly. He added that one minority community should not suffer when another was benefitting.
The IUML claimed that the Muslim community suffered a huge loss due to the state Cabinet's decision to introduce a new scheme for providing scholarship for minority students.
CM Pinarayi said that the IUML should show that there is such a loss before making such comments.
The government on Thursday decided to restructure the minority student scholarship ratio after the Kerala High Court quashed the 2015 state Government Order, providing scholarships in the 80:20 ratio to Muslims and Latin Christians and Converted Christians, saying it was "legally unsustainable."
"The scholarship ratio will be restructured in such a manner that no community will be denied the benefit," the government said.
Top IUML leaders, including Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, PK Kunhalikutty, ET Muhammed Basheer and KPA Majeed came out openly against the state government, alleging that the Muslim community lost an exclusive scheme formulated based on the Sachar Committee recommendation due to the government decision.
The Sachar Committee was constituted to study the backwardness of the Muslim community.
As per the census, the state has a minority population of 26.56% of Muslims, 18.38% of Christians, 0.01% Buddhists, 0.01% Jain community and 0.01% Sikh population.
The High Court had directed the Left government to pass appropriate orders, providing merit-cum-means scholarship to members of the notified minority communities within the state equally and in accordance with the latest population census available with the State Minority Commission.
(With PTI input)