The Backward Classes Welfare Association has demanded that the Central Government take the initiative in restoring the 34% reservations to backward classes in the local body election by making necessary amendments to the Constitution.
Association president and former MLA R. Krishnaiah said the government had issued ordinance restricting the reservation to BCs to 23% against the 34% implemented in the previous elections in 2013. This was because of the directive given by the Supreme Court to cap the reservations at 50% in line with the constitutional mandate.
He lamented that the High Court and Supreme Court were interfering in the provision of reservations to BCs from time to time and a permanent solution for the issue could be arrived at by making necessary amendments to the Constitution. Mr. Krishnaiah addressed letters to all the political parties, including the Congress and the BJP at the national-level, and said he had decided to raise the issue at the national-level during the current session of the Parliament.
The problem, according to him, was the absence of legal sanctity to reservations for the backward classes. The government which provided reservations to SCs, STs and women during the passage of Bills making the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments, however, left the BC reservation issue to the States’ purview. Absence of constitutional sanctity to the BC reservation was giving scope for intervention by the courts from time to time.
He felt that the 50% cap prescribed on reservations in education and government recruitment had technical rationale as it was aimed at ensuring that merit did not suffer.
There was, however, no justification in extending the same yardstick to politics as politics were being dominated by industrialists, contractors and rich sections.
