BSP leader Mayawati also said it was uncalled for and urged RSS head to shun his anti-quota ideology.
Abdul Bari Masoud | Caravan Daily
NEW DELHI — Congress and Dalit leaders on Monday hit out at RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for once again raking up the reservation issue by calling for a “harmonious” debate on the country’s reservation system. The leaders said the RSS-BJP’s anti-Dalit and anti-backward face is exposed once again.
BSP leader Mayawati termed the comment uncalled for and urged the RSS head to shun his anti-quota ideology.
Addressing a press conference here, along with party’s Dalit leaders PL Punia, and ex-MP Udit Raj, party spokesman Pawan Khera said it is a ploy of the RSS-BJP combine to divert the attention of the masses from the burning issues and atrocities perpetrated on the weaker sections of the society.
“This has become a habit with the BJP and its ideological masters – the RSS – to keep raking up issues and create conflict in the society about issues on which opinions are sharply divided, issues that can divert the attention of the people from the day-to-day problems that they are facing under this Government, he added.
This is a trap to hoodwink the people especially at a time when nothing is going well for the country – the economy is on the downward slide, the rate of unemployment is on all-time high and soaring inflation. Be it sudden scrapping of Article 370, demonetisation of currency notes or implementation of half-baked GST, all these decisions the government has taken in the past were meant to divert attention from the utter failure of the government. The rant of reservation issue is the latest in the series, he averred.
“What we are trying to expose is the design behind the comment, all the controversial decisions the government has taken or the narrative they have created around them,” he said.
Former chairman of SCs and STs Commission and party leader PL Punia pointed out that this is not for the first time the RSS tried to trigger controversy over the reservation question. Earlier in 2015, Bhagwat had called for a review of reservation policy and another RSS leader Manmohan Vaidya followed suit and claimed at the Jaipur Literary Festival that reservation leads to separatism.
Punia said BJP-ruled states attempted to do away with reservation in educational institutions but failed to do so.
In response to a question, he defended the Congress government’s decision in Chhattisgarh to hike OBC quota. He said the tribal-state has over 50 per cent OBC population but it has only 14 per cent OBC quota while in many other states of the country it ranges between 27 to 40 per cent.
Chhattisgarh has 32 per cent scheduled tribes and 14 per cent SC population, he pointed out.
Former MP Udit Raj, who left the BJP after being denied ticket for the Lok Sabha election, said the RSS and its political wing is anti-Dalit and anti-backward and hence could not think of any good for these weaker sections of the society. In support his contention, he recalled some past instances.
“On December 11, 1948, the RSS organised a big rally on Ram Lila Maidan in the Capital and set Dr Ambedkar’s effigy on fire in the presence of then RSS chief MS Golwalkar and other leaders of the organisation.”
He concluded that the RSS has always been opposed to the reservation policy. Underlining RSS-BJP’s anti-backward face, he said, it was LK Advani who had taken out the controversial rath yatra to counter VP Singh government’s decision to implement Mandal Commission report which envisaged reservation for the backward classes.
Meanwhile, Congress spokesman Randip Singh Surjewala tweeted, “The conspiracy to end reservations for the poor and change the Constitution has been uncovered.”
Calling Bhagwat’s comment as uncalled for, Mayawati also hit out at Bhagwat. In a tweet, she said, “The statement from the RSS about SC/ST/OBC reservation and call for a debate over the policy raises serious suspicion about the intention of the government. The reservation system is based on humanitarian and constitutional values and any kind of deviation from it would be an injustice. It would be good if the RSS could drop its anti-reservation mindset
