It’s back to school for Rahul Gandhi

It was a debate without any reservation.

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi stoutly defended the policy of caste-based reservation in education and employment during an impassioned interaction with students at National College, Basavanagudi, on Saturday.

There were questions galore.

And Gandhi tackled each one of them on merit. A girl student put her hand up and batted for merit in education. She wanted caste-based reservations to end.

She told Gandhi: “Stop reservations based on caste. It leads to contempt about SCs, STs and OBCs among those who are competing on merit. It’s an injustice to us.”

Gandhi, who has been in the limelight for spending nights at dalit homes in rural India, does not quite agree. He says: “Perhaps you have not been to villages. The fact of the matter is low caste people are being discriminated against in a big way for ages. The SCs, STs and OBCs together constitute about 70% of the population,” he said.

He, then, did a quick reality check by asking the assembled to raise their hands if they belonged to communities enjoying the reservation advantage. As very few hands went up, Gandhi said: “Ideally about 70% of you should have raised the hands. So it is clear that there is discrimination against lower caste people.”