The National OBC Morcha of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to honour and give public reception to the newly inducted 27-odd Central Cabinet ministers hailing from the backward classes, first in Delhi and later in their respective State capitals later this month, informed president K. Laxman on Friday.
The Central Cabinet now consisted of 70% of ministers from SC/ST and BC communities drawn from varied geographical spread from across the country which has never happened before. “The Opposition did not let Prime Minister Modi to introduce ministers from the weaker sections to Parliament, so we have decided to introduce them to the people,” he said, at a press conference.
The National BC Morcha unit has also decided to take up a countrywide awareness campaign about the new opportunities provided to the BCs and other weaker sections through the decisive actions by the Modi government. The “historic decision” of providing quota to BCs and to the economically weaker sections to the undergraduate and post-graduation courses in the medical and dental fields would directly benefit about 5,500 students, said the senior leader.
“Once the number of colleges increase, as is going to happen, the number of medical and dental seats will only increase from the 15% quota being allotted to the national pool. The issue has been hanging fire from 2007 and the then ruling UPA dispensation and allied parties should explain the reason for the delay,” he said.
The regional and caste-based parties are only bothered about aggrandising their own families rather than be concerned about the plight of the socially and economically disadvantaged sections, he said and charged the Congress and other parties of only “paying lip sympathy”.
No steps were taken towards implementing the Mandal or Kelkar Committee recommendations of providing quota to the BCs. Mr. Laxman claimed that the BC Commission has been provided constitutional backing as soon as the Modi government came into power, akin to the powers enjoyed by the SC/ST and Minority commissions. “We demand similar status be given to State-level commissions including in Telangana,” he said.
