TG committed to mobilise MPs' support for enhanced quota to BCs: CM

The Hindu

5 days ago

Taking strong objections to inordinate delays by the Central government to clear the bills providing 42 per cent reservation to backward class communities in education, employment and politics, Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy said the Telangana government is committed to mobilise the support from MPs of like-minded parties to mount pressure on the Centre to concede the State's request.
The Chief Minister left for New Delhi on Wednesday to meet the heads of Congress and leaders of the INDIA block seeking their cooperation in convincing the Centre to give its approval for the two Bills passed by the Telangana Legislature enhancing reservation of BCs to 42 per cent. The delegation led by Mr. Revanth Reddy had decided to call on Opposition leader in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and his counterpart in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge to urge them to raise the issue during the ongoing Monsoon session of the Parliament.
'We will explain the details of the social, economic, education, employment, political and caste survey conducted meticulously by the government in a scientific manner and seek their support,' he said. Mr. Revanth Reddy categorically said that the proposed reservation to Muslims was based on their backwardness and not on religious basis. 'This is not a religious reservation as is being viewed by the BJP leaders of Telangana. Reservation has been finalised based on the backwardness of these communities,' he averred.
He dismissed the claims of State BJP leaders including two Union Ministers Bandi Sanjay and G. Kishan Reddy that they would convince the Centre if Muslim were excluded from the Bill. 'The same reservation is implemented in Gujarat, the native State of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and in Uttar Pradesh from where he represents as MP and Maharashtra where the RSS headquarters is located. Let them scrap the reservations in these three States as also in States like Bihar first before asking the Telangana government to exclude Muslims,' he said.
He cited Union Home Minister Amit Shah as saying in an interview that Muslim quota was being implemented in Gujarat. 'Will they remove Mr. Amit Shah from the post for his comments?' he asked, adding the BJP leaders were coming up with lame excuses and pretexts to see that a community was excluded altogether from the list.
The Chief Minister recalled that Muslim quota was being implemented in different parts of the country since 1979 and this was based on their backwardness, not religion. He asserted that Telangana had become role model for the country after the methodology it had adopted for SEEEPC survey and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was reluctant to include caste enumeration initially, had decided to include the same in the upcoming Census enumeration. 'The 2029 elections will be a litmus test for all the parties in terms of BC reservation,' he said.
He accused the BJP leaders of indulging in baseless argument against Muslim community despite knowing that reservation is being provided to certain communities due to their backwardness. The BJP would face a rout in Telangana if they continued to harp on their stand.
Replying to queries, he said the expert group had submitted its report after thoroughly examining the modus operandi of the SEEEPC survey recently. The report would be discussed in the State Cabinet and the Assembly before it was made public. He exhorted the BJP and BRS leaders to raise relevant issues in the forthcoming session of the Legislature and said the government was prepared to clarify all their doubts. 'We are ready to share the entire data pertaining to the caste survey. We will give them access to the data, but for some information in view of the individual privacy regulations in place,' he said.
To another query, he said the government wanted the Centre to clear the pending Bills as the High Court had set September 30 deadline for holding elections to the local bodies after completion of reservation for them.
Replying to another query, he said the government had promulgated an ordinance striking down the amendment made to Panchayat Raj Act by the BRS government in 2018 limiting reservations to 50 per cent. The 50 per cent cap on reservation ceased to exist after introduction of quota for Economically Weaker Sections, he said.