Pratap Sarangi is a politician of a different breed. This time, the BJP-backed Independent MlA from Nilgiri made a point while keeping his views on the Odisha Reservation of Vacancies (ORV) Act, 1975 in the State Assembly on Wednesday.
Sarangi made the point which the present-day politicians would fear to talk about in public. He took no time to make his views recorded in the legislature.
“Once I asked former MP Bhajaman Behera (belonging to SC) whether he still required benefits of reservation even after becoming a Member of Parliament for 22 years,” Sarangi recalled while denouncing the attitude of persons belonging to the ST and SC categories after making their names in the society.
The people who hail from these communities should look after their brothers and sisters who are struggling for survival, he observed.
But the people who become political leaders, IAS and IPS officers and other important personalities make a separate class of theirs, Sarangi rued. Rejecting the idea of reservation provisions in Government services, Sarangi said that keeping reservation in education and recruitment is all right. But reservation in promotion and services creates resentment among other employees.
“A man belonging to the reserved category, who is appointed as a police inspector, suddenly supersedes his seniors and occupies a high position. The person who trained the inspector-rank officer works under him. Similar is the case for other officers,” Sarangi pointed out, rejecting the idea of reservation provision in the services.
He said this system creates anger among others. “Merit and seniority of a person should not be compromised at any cost,” he argued. Stating that Adivasi children are not less talented, Sarangi said he has seen tribal boys chanting Sanskrit Slokas if they are so educated.
However, Sarangi’s statement was strongly opposed by ruling BJD SC MlA Sipra Mallick. “We do not take benefits,” she said.