Raipur: Politics over reservation is flaring up in Chhattisgarh with the ruling Congress mounting an attack on the opposition BJP accusing it of pressurizing Raj Bhawan for delaying the Governor's assent to the bills to increase quota to 76% as part of BJP-RSS hidden agenda to deprive the weaker sections of reservation benefits.
“BJP-RSS always had a hidden agenda against reservation. They want to change the Constitution,” Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee president Mohan Markam said over the delay in the Governor granting her assent to the two reservation bills, passed during a special session of the assembly, for providing overall 76% reservation.
“The Governor had written a letter to the state government suggesting to convene the assembly for getting the bills passed. Thus, the state government brought two bills to enhance reservation in jobs and admissions in educational institutions,” Markam said, adding that he felt that the Governor should immediately sign the bills in the interests of people of the state. The state Congress chief said though the bills were unanimously passed by the assembly, the BJP always has a hidden agenda against reservation and it’s because of BJP's pressure that the bills are not getting cleared from Raj Bhawan.
A special session of the assembly on December 2 had passed two separate bills for increasing reservation of scheduled tribes to 32%, scheduled castes to 13%, OBC to 27% and to provide a four per cent quota to other EWS categories.
However, state Governor Anusuiya Uikey had raised ten-point queries over the bills seeking to know the details of data collected by the state government about the social, economic and educational backwardness of the communities concerned before arriving at a decision to enhance the overall reservation to 72%. On the other hand, the BJP has accused the Congress of messing up the reservation issue, causing an impasse. Tribal leader and former minister Kedar Kashyap said the tribal communities had suffered a major setback when the reservation dwindled from 32% to 20% following a high court order that had set aside a 2012 decision to enhance reservation to 58%.The HC had also maintained that any reservation over and above 50% is unconstitutional..
Kashyap pointed out that the state government had appointed K P Khade as chairman of the Chhattisgarh state scheduled caste commission despite him being one of the persons responsible for the setback in tribal reservation. Blaming Congress for the reservation impasse, the BJP leader said the present situation arose as the state government failed to furnish facts and relevant data to the Raj Bhawan.TNN
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