The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Monday reiterated its threat to launch a nationwide protest against reservations provided to Muslims by the Andhra Pradesh government.
Addressing reporters here, BJP national president M. Venkaiah Naidu said the state government's move would create divisions among the people. He advised it to withdraw the order.
"It is not at all a correct step. This is not done to help Muslims but only to cater for vote bank politics," he said, during a brief stopover on his way to Humnabad in neighbouring Karnataka to attend the funeral of India's oldest MP Ramchandra Veerappa.
Naidu was accompanied by former deputy prime minister L.K. Advani.
While clarifying that the BJP was not against Muslims, Naidu said the party was against reservations on the basis of religion.
He claimed that nowhere in the country were reservations provided on the basis of religion.
"Some states have given reservations to the socially and economically backward among Muslims but no one has provided reservation to the community as a whole on the basis of religion," he said when his attention was drawn to reservations provided by Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
"If you start giving reservations to Muslims why not to Christians and people of other religions?" he asked.
The state government had on July 12 issued an order providing five percent reservations to Muslims in educational institutions and jobs.