Leaders of National Democratic Alliance on Monday unanimously decided to oppose a Constitution Amendment Bill providing reservation in private educational institutions but exempting minority institutions from its purview.
"There should be reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and socially and educationally backward classes in government and non-governmental institutions.
"It should be applicable to all institutions and we have unanimously agreed that the clause exempting minority institutions should not be there," BJP spokesman V K Malhotra said after a 75-minute meeting of the alliance leaders.
The NDA said there should be reservation for Dalits and backward classes in the minority institutions.
"Moreover, definition of minorities is not clear. There are institutions run by linguistic minorities where the majority of the students are from majority linguistic community," Malhotra said.
Earlier, key NDA ally Janata Dal-United had reservations about the Bharatiya Janata Party's stand as it did not want to be seen as adopting an anti-minority stance.
This was resolved during the meeting, sources said.
