Rajnath defends sub-quota

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, JULY 3. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr. Rajnath Singh, has countered his critics while claiming that his move to set up the Committee for Social Justice to create a sub-quota of reservations for the Most Backward Castes (MBCs) and for the worst off among the Scheduled Castes (SCs) was ``not an electoral gimmick.''

It was a well meaning decision to allow the socially most backward and oppressed castes to get their due share in reservations which had till now benefited only a few of the dominant castes among the BC and SC groups.

The move has been criticised by the leader of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) who see in it a pre- election game-plan to create a rift between the backward and the most backward castes and between the more dominant and the less articulate scheduled castes. Naturally, what they have not said is that they fear erosion of their support bases among these groups. Mr. Singh has charged Ms. Mayawati of the BSP of raising irrelevant issues like increasing the total reservation quota when ``she must know that there is a Supreme Court ruling which does not allow this.''

Mr. Singh said that the seven-member committee for social justice that he has set up has been asked to submit its report within two months and he will ``immediately implement its recommendations.'' The U.P. Government's move amounts to separating the creamy layer among the backward and scheduled castes - which have over the years cornered most of the quota of reservations - to create separate quotas for the most backward and the most oppressed of the scheduled caste groups.

Mr. Singh said that his step did not go against the party's stand on sub-quotas. However, the BJP has often expressed itself against the creation of sub-quotas for different castes on the ground that this would further heighten caste feelings conflicts.

The entire Hindutva exercise of the party was partly aimed at creating a consolidated Hindu vote-bank for itself, whereas caste divisions have only led to the erosion of the party's support base. Hindutva and the kamandal (saffron) politics was the BJP's answer to the `mandal' politics of the socialist parties.

Rationally speaking the Government cannot be faulted, but that does not mean that this decision coming after nearly four years of BJP's rule has no political agenda. Mr. Singh knows that the BJP has steadily witnessed an erosion of support from the Backward Castes and the Dalits. Mr. Singh's is a desperate move to try and create support among these groups, simultaneously hoping that the BJP's gain would be the loss of the SP and the BSP, the two parties who are expected to be the front runners in the electoral race scheduled early next year.

Mr. Singh, who was here, has no explanation for why the BJP Government did not do anything about this for four long years. All that he emphasised was that he had become Chief Minister just over six months ago and he had then declared that his Government's policy would dictated by insaniyat (humanitarianism) not religion or caste.

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