Lucknow, March 12: Shia clerics in the state capital on Sunday organised a convention in the Bada Imambada where they made a demand for representation in parliament through a quota. Cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad had made a call to all Shia clerics of Uttar Pradesh to come to Lucknow for the convention.

Addressing the gathering, Jawad said that in Lucknow alone there are three assembly seats where candidates win only if they get the vote of the Shia community. "The Shia community decides who will win the election in Lucknow and yet we are being ignored," he said.

The community needs to be politically strong in order to get the benefits of the government. A community which is not politically strong does not get any benefits, he said, as he asked for a special package for Shias from the government.

Jawad said the government keeps on talking about Pasmanda Muslims, but the fact is that a large number of Pasmandas are from the Shia community. He said Shia community doesn't have any representation in the parliament and demanded a quota such as reserved for Parsis.

"We demand that the youth of the Shia community should get the reservation in government jobs, reservation in economic packages, seats in parliament and state assembly and the government should remove all encroachment from the waqf property" said Jawad.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)