Union Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi today said that the BJP government at the Centre has ended "appeasement and vote bank politics", which was going on for years.
"The BJP government has ended appeasement and vote bank politics, which had been continuing for last several years, and our policy is empowerment without appeasement and development with dignity of all sections of the society," Naqvi said while addressing a coordination meeting of minority welfare ministers of nine states including Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and Delhi.
Naqvi said that the Narendra Modi government was working with commitment for "inclusive growth" which has ensured that all sections of the society, including minorities, are becoming an equal partner of the development process.
"Due to the policy, minorities are also becoming an equal partner of the country's development process. Participation of minorities in central government jobs, which was about 5 per cent in 2014, has gone up to 10 per cent in 2017. In this year's civil services exam, around 125 minority youths have been selected, out of which 52 are from Muslim community," he said.
The conference was organised to take stock of various educational, skill development, scholarships schemes meant for minorities and get the state governments' suggestions on ways to ensure these welfare schemes were implemented more effectively at the ground level and the benefits reached to all the needy people.
Naqvi said that most of the states have been working well on implementing the schemes for minority communities.
Over 280 inspecting authorities of the Minority Affairs Ministry were working as "watchdog" of various development and welfare schemes, he added.
