NEW DELHI: Home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday mocked Congress seeking to champion the cause of OBCs by recalling Congress governments sitting tight over the recommendations of commissions under Kaka Kalelkar and B P Mandal as well as Rajiv Gandhi’s speech in Parliament opposing implementation of OBC quota by the V P Singh government.
“Congress has done the greatest harm to OBCs.The party has done nothing for the welfare of OBCs. It is PM Modi who has been working relentlessly for the welfare of backward classes,” Shah said during the debate inLok Sabha on the J&K Reservation (Amendment) Bill and the J&K Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, both of which were passed.
Although BJP and Congress have frequently sparred over the OBC issue since Congress, in a dramatic switch, endorsed the demand for caste count that it had all along resisted and Rahul Gandhi embraced the socialist “jitni abadi, utna haq” (to each according to their number) plank, the fresh bout came after the lead opposition party’s drubbing at the hands of the saffron incumbent in Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh which boast of big OBC concentrations.
The outcome, widely interpreted as evidence that Rahul’s conversion to the Mandal plank had not worked, has enthused BJP which has highlighted Modi’s OBC background and the measures, for instance, constitutional status for National Commission for Backward Classes, he has taken for welfare of the socially backward.
The J&K Reservation (Amendment) Bill seeks to reserve seats for OBCs by substituting “weak and underprivileged classes (social castes)” to “other backward classes” for getting reservation benefits. The law will ensure reservation for OBCs in appointment and admission in professional institutions in Jammu and Kashmir, Shah added.
“Many Congress leaders have lately been invoking ‘backward class’. There are some who keep reading from the piece of paper they are handed to for six months when they switch to a fresh piece of paper and they keep reading it for six months until handed over a fresh piece of paper. They visit gram sabhas chanting the name of backward classes. They do not know what their party has done. Who sat on the Kaka Kalelkar report,” he asked.
Shah said even the Mandal Commission report granting reservation to OBCs could be implemented only when Congress was voted out of office. “Then too, it was the then leader of the opposition, Rajiv Gandhi, who had opposed the move,” he said. “I say this with full responsibility, this is the historic truth. If any party has opposed the welfare of backward classes, then it is Congress,” he added.
“Congress has done the greatest harm to OBCs.The party has done nothing for the welfare of OBCs. It is PM Modi who has been working relentlessly for the welfare of backward classes,” Shah said during the debate inLok Sabha on the J&K Reservation (Amendment) Bill and the J&K Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, both of which were passed.
Although BJP and Congress have frequently sparred over the OBC issue since Congress, in a dramatic switch, endorsed the demand for caste count that it had all along resisted and Rahul Gandhi embraced the socialist “jitni abadi, utna haq” (to each according to their number) plank, the fresh bout came after the lead opposition party’s drubbing at the hands of the saffron incumbent in Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh which boast of big OBC concentrations.
The outcome, widely interpreted as evidence that Rahul’s conversion to the Mandal plank had not worked, has enthused BJP which has highlighted Modi’s OBC background and the measures, for instance, constitutional status for National Commission for Backward Classes, he has taken for welfare of the socially backward.
The J&K Reservation (Amendment) Bill seeks to reserve seats for OBCs by substituting “weak and underprivileged classes (social castes)” to “other backward classes” for getting reservation benefits. The law will ensure reservation for OBCs in appointment and admission in professional institutions in Jammu and Kashmir, Shah added.
“Many Congress leaders have lately been invoking ‘backward class’. There are some who keep reading from the piece of paper they are handed to for six months when they switch to a fresh piece of paper and they keep reading it for six months until handed over a fresh piece of paper. They visit gram sabhas chanting the name of backward classes. They do not know what their party has done. Who sat on the Kaka Kalelkar report,” he asked.
Shah said even the Mandal Commission report granting reservation to OBCs could be implemented only when Congress was voted out of office. “Then too, it was the then leader of the opposition, Rajiv Gandhi, who had opposed the move,” he said. “I say this with full responsibility, this is the historic truth. If any party has opposed the welfare of backward classes, then it is Congress,” he added.