New Delhi: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi Friday expressed regret about the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government not including an OBC quota in the women’s reservation bill that was tabled in the Parliament in 2010.
At the time, non-inclusion of the sub quota — a demand made by parties like the RJD and the SP — had eventually led to the bill not being passed by the Lok Sabha.
Speaking at a press conference at the Congress headquarters in Delhi, Gandhi accepted that the women’s reservation bill would’ve come into effect years ago had the sub-quota been added to the UPA-formulated bill.
“100 per cent…(we have) 100 per cent regret. We should’ve done it then and we will make sure this happens,” he said, in response to a question on the same.
However, Gandhi also alleged that the women’s reservation bill — in its present form — was an attempt by the current dispensation to divert attention from the demand for a caste census.
“…when we read the fine print, we found something very interesting. Two little subtexts were there. Number 1, this will be done after delimitation. Number 2, this will be done after census. What it means is this bill will be implemented a decade from now…This is a diversionary tactic. It is a way of moving everyone’s attention away. Question is, what are they moving everyone’s attention away from? And the answer is the caste census,” Gandhi said.
The Congress MP also said that only three out of 90 officers at the secretary-level were OBCs. He also alleged that these OBC officers have control over only five per cent of sanctioned budgets.
“Are the OBCs five per cent of India? Is that the amount of participation we want from the OBCs? So a central question is, how many OBCs are there in India? How many different communities are there in India? If we want to distribute power, we have to know this number,” he said.
Gandhi added that if the Congress comes to power it will make the caste census data public.
“The BJP’s answer was that it doesn’t matter how many OBCs are there in the government of India. What matters is that there are MPs and MLAs who are OBC…You can ask any MP or any MLA how much they participate in law making. They will tell you there’s no participation,” he said.
“It’s almost as if they keep placing these OBC MPs on one side and taking away the real power of the OBCs from the other side,” Gandhi added.
Also read: Women’s Reservation Bill ‘a betrayal’ — Congress says quota will be in place by 2029 or even later