Stunning the opposition and perhaps even its friends alike, the Modi government on Monday took a decision – already being billed as a game-changer and aimed at wooing the upper castes – to bring a constitutional amendment bill for granting 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker upper castes.
Union social justice minister Thawar Chand Gehlot is set to introduce the Constitution Amendment draft law in Lok Sabha on Tuesday, the last day of the Winter Session of Parliament.
The Bill, if given nod in the House of the People on Tuesday, may go to Rajya Sabha on Wednesday provided the session is extended. According to sources, Business Advisory Committees of both the Houses could meet on Tuesday and discuss the possibilities of extending the Session by a few days.
Currently, there is no such reservation in the general category.
“The reservation will be given to those economically backward poor people from general caste and it will not hamper the existing reservation norms meant for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and also OBCs,” a source said.
The Bill is likely to define Economic Weaker Sections as citizens with annual income below Rs.8 lakh, agriculture land below 5 hectare, residential house below 1000 sq ft, residential plot measuring below 100 yards in notified municipality and residential plot measuring below 200 yards in a non-notified municipal area.
The proposed quota will include sections not falling under any provision of reservation such as Brahmins, Banias, Thakurs, Jats, Gujjars, Muslims and Christians.
The Supreme Court has fixed maximum 50 per cent quota on reservation, but the government sources have said that in no case the Parliament’s right to “amend the Constitution” has been taken away.
Former finance minister Yashwant Sinha who quit the BJP last year called it a ‘jumla’. “The proposal to give 10 per cent reservation to economically weaker upper castes is nothing more than a jumla. It is bristling with legal complications and there is no time for getting it passed through both Houses of Parliament. The (Modi) government stands completely exposed,” he tweeted.
The Congress has charged the government of remembering the economically weaker sections at the fag end of its five year rule. “100 days are left for elections, and Modi now remembers the economically weaker sections of the society,”AICC media in charge Randeep Surjewala said.
The BJP has, however, backed the new move saying it only reflects the true spirit of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The biggest issue on reservation here is the conspiracy of division, today what Modi has proposed is an equaliser. It is about ‘sabka saath, sabka vikaas,” BJP spokesman Sambit Patra said in a television programme. (UNI)
