New Delhi: Suggesting that the government conduct a caste census and echoing his mother Sonia Gandhi’s demand for a sub-quota for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the the women’s reservation bill, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi said Wednesday that only three of the 90 secretaries in the Government of India are OBCs, and that this number is an “insult” to the community.
The women’s reservation bill was passed in the Lok Sabha later in the day (454 votes in favour and two against).
While participating in the discussion on the bill in the Lower House, Gandhi said that he wanted to check who are the “most important set of people in the Government of India, those who define how this country is governed,” adding that “this includes the secretaries”.
“There are 90 secretaries, responsible for managing the core of the government and I asked myself how many come from the OBC community. I was shocked and shattered by the answer. Only three of the 90 are from the OBC community,” he said.
The former Congress president went on to add that these three secretaries control “just five percent” of the country’s budget.
“If India’s budget is Rs 44 lakh crore, they control Rs 2.47 lakh crore… Please change this list as it is an insult to the OBC community. Release the data of caste census immediately that our government (UPA) conducted. If you don’t release it, we will release it,” he said.
Gandhi’s remarks were followed by loud protests after which he and other Congress leaders were heard telling the treasury benches, “Daro mat (Don’t get scared). We are only talking about the caste census.”
“This discussion is about the transfer of power to the people of India and women being one group of people and the OBCs being another, I am saying that the OBCs, who are a huge number, account for just three of the 90 secretaries in this country and control just five percent of the budget. This is an insult to the OBC community,” he said.
The Congress leader also demanded that the government immediately implement the women’s reservation bill. “There is no need for the census and delimitation, give 33 percent reservation (to women),” he said.
Article 334A of the women’s reservation bill, tabled in the Lower House Tuesday as the Constitution (128th) Amendment Bill, 2023, states that quotas for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies will come into effect only after a delimitation exercise is undertaken for this purpose, which in turn, can be done after the census.
But the government is yet to furnish clarity on when the census, originally slated for 2021 and delayed on account of the Covid-19 pandemic, will be conducted.
Rahul Gandhi also said he was of the view that the women’s reservation bill is incomplete as it does not include reservation for women from the OBC community.
Accusing the government of diverting people’s attention from other issues like alleged violations of shareholding norms by the Adani Group and the demand for a caste census, Gandhi said he wondered if the delimitation rider was an intentional ploy by the BJP to delay the implementation of the women’s reservation bill.
“I wonder if this has not been designed to push the ball forward seven, eight, nine years… And then let this thing play out the way it does,” he said.
While complimenting the design of the new Parliament building, he took another dig at the government by asking why President Droupadi Murmu “was not invited” for its inauguration.
“This is a nice building, nice peacocks on the walls, on the chairs, a nice tasteful building. But I would have liked to see the President of India in this process. The President is a woman, represents the tribal community and it would have been befitting to have her present during this transfer of one House to another,” he said.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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