Written by: Express News Service
2 min readLucknowNov 7, 2013 03:44 AM IST
First published on: Nov 7, 2013 at 03:44 AM IST
The ruling SP government Wednesday slammed Congress’ move to provide reservation to the Jat community so they can get central government jobs under Other Backward Class (OBC) category.
“We are against such a proposal. They do not fulfill any norms to be categorised as OBCs. They are an affluent class and are educationally and financially well-off”,Uttar Pradesh Mining Minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati said. He is being projected as the OBC leader and is currently leading a social justice rath yatra for the SP demanding SC status to 17 Most Backward Class (MBCs).
Surprisingly,Jats are already categorised as OBC in Uttar Pradesh and are eligible for reservation. When asked,Prajapati said,“I have no such information. If it was done in past,then it would have been done without proper survey.”
Jats were included in the OBC list of UP during the BJP regime when Ram Prakash Gupta was the CM.
“Jat reservation is being raked up in the wake of the Muzaffarnagar riots. Congress wants to polarise the votes. Even BJP is hand in glove with the Congress. It is a divide and rule policy to eat the share of OBC votes. SP will oppose any such bill in parliament,” Prajapati said.
A Group of Ministers (GoM) set up to deal with the Jat reservation issue has already made its recommendations to Union Cabinet. Prajapati added that Congress should instead give SC status to 17 MBCs for which UP assembly had sent its recommendation.
“But they are more interested in dividing OBCs. Jat reservation is illegal as they are rich and cannot be termed as backward,” he said.
SP MLC Naresh Uttam and Rajpal Kashyap,chairman of State Fisheries Corporation also supported Prajapati’s views. “They should first compete the quota of all castes in OBC and then proceed for Jat reservation,” Uttam said.
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