Quota move has upset Congress’ calculations

NEW DELHI: The first political casualty of the current anti-quota stir is likely to be Rahul Gandhi’s formal entry into the AICC. According to senior Congress leaders, the student upsurge on the reservation issue has delayed plans to induct the MP from Amethi into the organisation.

Several surveys have shown that over 50 per cent of the people in the country are below the age of 45 and the Congress party had pinned its hopes on Rahul Gandhi to help in reaching out to them. The party was gearing itself up towards making a big splash on the campuses by using Rahul and some of the other young MPs. However, the current unrest on the campuses on the reservation issue has forced the party to rethink its strategy.

The HRD Minister’s decision to reserve seats in the premier institutions of the country for OBC students has also upset the party’s caste calculations. The party’s political managers are worried that the move will end up upsetting both the upper castes as well as the OBCs. The upper castes are worked up over the quotas and believe that it will eat into the share of seats available to students in the general category. Besides, parties like the BJP are all set to exploit the issue while the BSP was the first to moot the idea of increasing the number of seats.

The party’s political managers believe that it is unlikely to gain much as far as the OBC votes are concerned. They are concerned because this segment is already aligned with the parties headed by Lalu Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav. A large number of leaders believe that when it comes to votes, the OBCs tend to vote for leaders and parties of their own castes. Hence the Congress, they believe, stands little chance of gaining politically.