Congress accuses Modi Government of undermining reservations through privatization

PTI, Apr 28, 2024, 7:17 PM IST

The Congress on Sunday attacked the BJP over Home Minister Amit Shah’s quota remarks in Uttar Pradesh, alleging that the Modi government has used privatization as a ”weapon” to weaken reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs in the last 10 years. The opposition party also claimed that the secret behind the BJP’s ‘400 paar’ slogan is that they will openly try to end reservation this time.

The Congress’ attack came after Shah, speaking at a UP rally, said the BJP will neither remove reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs nor will it allow anyone to do so, calling it a ”Modi guarantee”.

Responding to Shah’s remarks, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, ”Mr. Home Minister when airports were handed over to the prime minister’s best friend in various cities, wasn’t reservation finished there? When Air India was sold, wasn’t the reservation finished there? When you were going to sell steel plants and oil refineries, wouldn’t that have ended reservation there?” ”Earlier IPCL, BSNL, Ashoka hotels in various cities were sold off, didn’t it end reservation in these places? This is the result of your policy of privatization that you have adopted in the last 10 years that has ended reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs and employment opportunities for lakhs of people have been closed,” the Congress leader said in a video statement posted on X.

That is why the Congress has been repeatedly stating that the BJP is against reservations, Ramesh added.

Along with the video statement, Ramesh posted in Hindi, ”In the last 10 years, the Modi government has used privatization as a weapon to weaken reservation. The secret behind ‘400 paar’ is also the same – this time they will openly try to end reservation.” Opposition parties have repeatedly claimed that the BJP’s call for ”abki baar 400 paar” is aimed at winning 400 seats in the Lok Sabha elections to have the numbers in Parliament to scrap quotas for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).