PMK leader S Ramadoss met both Sonia Gandhi and prime minister Manmohan Singh and requested them to take necessary measures to include the creamy layer
NEW DELHI: Even as the cabinet committee on political affairs on Thursday decided to go ahead with the implementation of 27% OBC reservation in higher educational institutions, regional OBC satraps are in a Catch 22 situation on the question of creamy layer.
PMK leader S Ramadoss on Friday met both UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and prime minister Manmohan Singh and requested them to take necessary measures to include the creamy layer in the OBC quota.
The meeting came soon after a high-level DMK delegation, which comprised all its ministers in the Manmohan Singh cabinet, called on UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi seeking her intervention on the issue.
Both the PM and the Congress president assured Ramadoss that a meeting of all UPA and Left leaders will be held soon to discuss the tangle.
Singh, however, told Ramadoss that the government is keen that implementation starts from the upcoming academic session. All OBC leaders agree that the implementation should be from this year itself but the problem is how to include creamy layer when the supreme court excluded it.
Ramadoss said the “prime minister assured us the creamy layer issue will be discussed at various levels in order to find a solution, though the implementation will start this year.”
The OBC parliamentary forum comprising 150-odd MPs are meeting here shortly to discuss the thorny issue. Demanding upward revision of the criteria, forum president Hanumantha Rao said the creamy layer barrier will hit a large number of OBC students.
In any case not many OBC students make it to the higher educational instiutions. So the question also before the leaders is how to fill the quotas. Nobody has any specific answers to that one. OBC sources said the leaders would discuss all these aspects in the upcoming UPA-Left meeting.
“The OBC representation in central jobs is as low as 4.7% in group A, 2.3% in group B, 5.9% in group C and 6.9% in group D. This is well below the 27% quota,” said Janata Dal (United) president Sharad Yadav.
While Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal is pressing the government to file a review petition in the apex court seeking inclusion of the creamy layer, others fear it may be time consuming and may abort implementation from this year. RJD leader Devendra Prasad said the government “should go in for a review of the SC order and demanded a central law to undo the violation of Constitution on the creamy layer issue”. Some OBC leaders have demanded setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the issue.
And if they insisted on creamy layer inclusion, some opponents could move the court again delaying the whole process.
The DMK delegation had urged the Congress president to increase the income limit from Rs2.5 lakh to Rs5 lakh to determine the creamy layer status. The DMK leaders said “even the children of group D employees might not be able to enjoy the benefits of reservation under the present income ceiling.” Indications are the government may under pressure from the powerful OBC lobby revise the criteria.
k_benedict@dnaindia.net
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