National Minorities Commission member to visit Maharashtra from Sunday

After assessing the state’s issues, the Commission will deliberate further with the Centre. It is part of the Prime Minister’s 15-point programme for the welfare of minorities.

The purpose of the programme is to enhance opportunities in the field of education, provide equitable opportunities for minorities in economic activities and employment through various existing schemes, enhanced credit support for self-employment, and recruitment to jobs through the state and Central government. Apart from these, the focus is on improving the living conditions of minorities and offering them appropriate share in infrastructure development schemes, besides prevention of communal disharmony and violence.

Shahzadi, who is a postgraduate in political science from Osmania University, had contested as a BJP candidate from the Chandrayangutta Assembly seat in Telangana against All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen’s (AIMIM) Akbaruddin Owaisi in 2018. She lost the elections.

Interestingly, the Commission member’s visit to the state comes at a time when right-wing organisations led by the RSS/BJP have launched a campaign against “love jihad” in Maharashtra. The coalition government, led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, is under pressure to enact a law against religious conversions and curb alleged incidents of love jihad.

Last month, during a media interaction organised by Loksatta (The Indian Express Group), Fadnavis had acknowledged, “The state government was not against intercaste or interfaith marriages. But there are rising instances of innocent girls lured and trapped in interfaith marriages. The state administration has to intervene to check such frauds as often it is noted that girls, after marriage, are subjected to brutal atrocities and dumped.” Such instances arising out of “love jihad” are creating law and order issues in villages due to animosity between two groups. It has become a law and order issue, he explained.