Bill seeks to ensure backward classes get their due: Govt

NEW DELHI: The aim behind the constitutional amendment to restore states’ right to draw OBC lists is to ensure backward classes get their due as part of BJP’s bid to build a “samras (equitable) samaj” where non-reserved sections also benefit from an EWS quota, said environment minister Bhupender Yadav.
The main speaker for the treasury benches, Yadav defended the Centre against the charge that it ignored warnings that the previous amendment was flawed, pointing to the social justice and empowerment ministry’s submissions to a parliamentary committee that the states’ rights will not be infringed. Pointing out that two of five SC judges of the bench that ruled against the states’ powers had supported the Centre, he said the bill had not been anti-federal.
Attacking Congress in Lok Sabha on Tuesday, Yadav said the most measures to ensure justice for Dalits, OBCs and the poor were rolled out by the Modi government. He said since the SC had ruled against the central law, the government was exercising its prerogative of returning to Parliament to set it right.
“When for the first time a non-Congress government came to power, the Janata Party, the Mandal Commission was created. It had submitted its report in 1980 and you (the Congress) ran the government after that but did not implement it,” Yadav said. He added UPA failed to give a constitutional status to the commission for backward classes and had created an unpalatable situation in the matter of PSU and other central offices as regards OBC quotas.
Yadav, who chaired the select committee on the bill to give constitutional status to the OBC commission, said it was the Modi government that implemented the OBC quota in Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas. BJP’s Bihar party chief Sanjay Jaiswal took a dig at Rahul Gandhi’s absence in Lok Sabha, noting that it seemed to reflect the lack of commitment to the important constitutional amendment being discussed.
Madhya Pradesh BJP leader Ganesh Singh said Congress always ignored the interest of OBCs, a wrong corrected by the Modi government. Speaking in Marathi, BJP's Pritam Munde challenged the claim of Shiv Sena and NCP that the current state government was paying for earlier bungling. “How you argued before the SC (about Maratha quotas) is for you to explain... You cannot say that anything that does not work out is the fault of the Centre... We do not want to give benefits to someone by taking them away from someone else,” she said.
Union minister and Apna Dal MP Anupriya Patel backed the opposition’s demand for a socio-economic caste census, saying that this was the only way to get the true picture of the number of OBCs in the country and to give them their due.
TDP MP K Ram Mohan Naidu, on the other hand, while supporting the bill, said the government needed to ensure that the 27% reservation for OBCs was implemented in letter and spirit. On behalf of the TDP, he also said the government should create a separate ministry for OBCs.