NEW DELHI: BJP national president Amit Shah said that he would to take up the matter of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) minority issue before the Centre. A delegation of AMU students and professors met Shah in New Delhi.The students and teachers delegation earlier had met Samajwadi party chief and MP Mulayam Singh Yadav, MP and national president of JDU Sharad Yadav, union cabinet minister and national president LJP Ramvilash Paswan, union civil aviation minister and senior leader of TDP Pushapati Ashok Gajapati Raju, railway minister Suresh Prabhu, MP and national president of Jan Adhikar Party Pappu Yadav etc. go gather consensus among the political parties on the issue.Notably, the BJP-led NDA government had taken a stand in the Supreme Court last month that Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) could not be categorized as a 'minority' institution.Reacting on the Centre's submission in the Supreme Court that the university was not a minority institution, students said AMU should be continue as a minority institution.AMU Act was enacted in 1920 dissolving and incorporating Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College. "It concerns the education and advancement of the socially, economically backward section of Indian society, Muslims. The government has retracted from its earlier stand. We are seeking support from all political parties into the matter to get justice," Mohd. Perwez Siddiqui, president of Sir Syed minority foundation of India in AMU said."AMU has long history of minority status. Since its inception in 1875 as Mohammadan Anglo Oriental College, the university holds its unique characters that speak of its claim to be a minority institution. The great visionary Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of this university had established MAO College to serve the minorities and mariginalised sections of the society," Siddiqui added.In January, Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi had told a bench of Supreme Court that it is the stand of the Union of India that AMU is not a minority university. "As the executive government at the Centre, we can't be seen as setting up a minority institution in a secular state," he had said.Siddiqui said that the delegation appealed Shah to take up the issue before the Centre to file affidavit in favour of AMU as minority institution."Since 2006, when the UPA, in its second term, filed an appeal against the Allahabad High Court judgment, the law has not changed. How can the government now retract from that stand?," he added.In 2006, a division bench of the Allahabad High Court struck down the provision of the AMU Amendment Act, 1981 scrapping AMU's minority status. In doing so, the Allahabad High Court upheld its earlier judgment that considered the minority status accorded to the university as "unconstitutional". The Central government then stood for the AMU's demand for minority status.

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