Chasing that bank of votes again

Uttar Pradesh goes to polls and the Congress is wooing Muslims again,promising 9% quota. Clearly,it hasn’t drawn any lessons from its similar move in Andhra Pradesh. Thrice,the court turned it down but the government brazened it out. So who cares if the courts strike down the latest promise too? By that time those who have to be fooled,would have been fooled; what’s to be won,would have been won. Exclusive excerpts from the expanded edition of Arun Shourie’s Falling Over Backwards,to be published by HarperCollins in April 2012 are on The Indian Express website.