During the debate on the women’s reservation bill in Lok Sabha, Rahul claimed that there are only three secretaries in the government of India who belong to the Other Backward Class (OBC) community.
“I was shocked to find out that out of 90 secretaries in the government of India, only three are OBCs. These secretaries only control 5 per cent of the budget. If the country’s budget is 44 lakh crore then 2.4 lakh crore controls it,” Rahul said.
Rahul was raising the concerns of opposition about OBC representation in the bill, the delimitation exercise and the delay in implementation of the Bill.
Responding to Rahul’s remarks, Shah said that those claiming to speak on behalf of OBCs must know that it is the BJP that gave an OBC Prime Minister to the country.
“One of my colleagues (Rahul Gandhi) was saying that the number of those who run the country is three who belong to the OBC category. Now who will make him (Rahul Gandhi) understand that it is the government who runs the country, not the secretaries,” Shah said.
Shah said that according to the Constitution, the policy of the country will be decided only by the Cabinet and Parliament.
“You (referring to Rahul Gandhi who was not present during Shah’s speech) are not here to listen, but I want to tell you that there are 29 per cent of MPs in our party who belong to the OBC community. If you want to do a comparison, just come to us,” he said.
Shah further said that in the Union Cabinet, there are 29 ministers who belong to the community and out of 1m358 MLAs, there are 365 MLAs in BJO who belong to the OBC category.
“You speak about the OBC, but it was the BJP who gave this country a PM from the OBC community,” Shah said.
(With inputs from agencies)