A demonstration demanding introduction of bill for 50% reservation in the law-making bodies to Backward Classes would be held on March 29 outside Parliament, president of the national Backward Classes Welfare Association R. Krishnaiah said here on Friday.
Speaking at a meeting of 36 BC associations and 40 community (caste) associations, he said representatives of BC communities from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and other States would participate in the protest demonstration to be held as ‘Chalo Parliament’. They were also planning to conduct an all-party meet on the issue in Delhi and to meet Union Ministers and opposition parties’ leaders for three days from March 31.
He recollected that the BC bodies had been demanding 50% quota in the legislative bodies since 1994 but successive governments at the Centre had not made an attempt to address the issue. He opined that the Centre might respond to the issue only if the BC bodies intensified the movement in the form of a militant struggle.
Mr. Krishnaiah alleged that instead of providing 56% proportional quota to BCs, the governments were giving only 27% quota in education and employment and in panchayat raj institutions. It was brought down to 22% from 34%. The Centre was not even considerate to have separate ministry/department for BCs although they constituted 75 crore in the country’s population. The Centre was also not ready to conduct BC caste-wise census.
He criticised the Centre for allocating only ₹1,400 crore to BC communities out of the Union Budget of ₹38.45 lakh crore. BC bodies’ leaders G. Ananthaiah, G. Krishna, V. Ramakrishna, G. Krishna Yadav, Bhupesh Sagar, Uday Kuarm, Niranjan, K. Shivakumar and others attended the meet.
