‘Anti-Dalit Cong wants to abolish quotas’

With elections round the corner, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati is not missing any opportunity to pounce upon the UPA government and the Congress. She used the SC/ST (Reservation in Posts and Services) Bill, 2008, to dub the Congress and the Centre “anti-Dalit”. The Bill will be tabled in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. 

“This is a conspiracy... the Congress wants to deprive Dalits of reservations... this Bill is a beginning in that direction,” the Bahujan Samaj Party chief thundered. “The Bill has exposed the anti-Dalit mentality of the Congress and its allies... the BJP and other parties are also mute witnesses to this injustice,” she said. 

Mayawati has written a letter voicing her opposition to the Bill to prime minister Manmohan Singh, Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.  Mayawati is opposed to section 4(1) of the Bill.

“The provision is  such that SC/ST candidates will be barred from applying for several Class I posts in 47 central organisations, including the IITs and IIMs,” Mayawati said calling the Bill “anti-Constitutional”. 

“This means that SC/ST students can study in IIMs and IITs but they cannot become professors in these institutions...the Congress never liked the concept of reservations and now they are out to abolish it completely.”