New Delhi:Suggesting 200 per cent decline in number of communal riots since the NDA dispensation came to power, Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi today claimed rise in recruitment from minority communities in central government jobs during this period.

Speaking to reporters here, Naqvi termed last year’s Dadri lynching incident of a Muslim person as “unfortunate”, but said barring two-three cases, the overall performance of the NDA government regarding minorities “has been good”.

“Barring exception of two-three incidents, the overall performance of Modi government during nearly two-and-half years, from minorities’ point of view as well, has been good.

“If you see, the communal riots…(according to) our National Commission for Minorities (NCM) report, there has been a drop of 200 per cent during the past two years,” said the Minister of State for Minority Affairs (Independent Charge).

He said since “nothing major” happened during the government’s stint so far, “a small incident may have been made into a big one”. He though did not mention any particular incident.

“Otherwise, none can show any incident as a big communal riot happening. None can say there were riots like those in Bhiwandi (Maharashtra), Meerut (Uttar Pradesh) where 1000 people were killed. The Dadri incident was an unfortunate incident, but it was not a communal riot,” he said.

According to the information made available by the Minority Affairs Ministry, the NCM received 2,127 complaints during 2012-13. Of these, 1,973 were disposed of, while 154 pending. In 2013-14, the Commission got 2,638 grievances. It cleared 2,483, while 155 were pending.

During 2014-17, it received 1,995 complaints, disposed of 1,944, while 51 cases remained pending.

The NCM said it got 1,461 complaints during 2015-16 as on December 8 last year. Out of these, 1,348 were cleared, while 113 were pending.

The Minister also said the recruitment of persons belonging to minority communities has gone up during Modi government’s stint.

Replying to a query in Lok Sabha on May 4, Minister of State in PMO, Jitendra Singh, had said that as per the data received for 2013-14 by Department of Personnel and Training, 7.89 per cent of people from minorities were recruited. While between 2014-15, 8.56 per cent of people from minorities have been recruited in government services.

PTI