Cutting across party lines, 21 Muslim MPs met on Thursday to discuss ways to address the problems of community in the wake of the Rajinder Sachar Committee Report.

The Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha and Congress MP from Karnataka, K Rehman Khan, initiated the meeting. The high-level Sachar committee set up by the Prime Minister has thrown up dismal data on Muslim representation in education and employment.

Representatives from all political parties and both Houses, including the Opposition BJP’s Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, CPM’s Mohammed Salim and Hanan Mollah and MIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi attended the one-and-a-half hour meeting at Parliament Annexe.

The purpose of the meeting was to move towards the formation of a high-level committee of MPs across all parties, which would recommend action points for the PM to implement in the next few months.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said: “For 50 years, only non-issues have preoccupied Muslims, we need to get ourselves to focus on real issues. We need to turn the concept of empowerment through education into a movement of sorts.”

Said CPM MP Hanna Mollah: “It was an informal beginning with MPs across all parties, we want to do things on which there is agreement across all parties.”

At the meeting, there was agreement on the need for education as a priority. Sources say that the MPs agreed that for all areas where there were about 150 Muslim families, the government should be pushed to open one primary school with funds from the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Also, there should be Indian Technical Institutes in 305 districts with considerable Muslim population. The MPs also discussed ways to prevent discrimination by Recruitment Boards of public bodies.

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