Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati criticised the Yogi Adityanath government’s decision to include 17 Other Backward Classes in Scheduled Castes category, saying it was “unconstitutional” and a big fraud to gain political mileage.
In a statement released in Lucknow on Monday, Mayawati said the Yogi government’s decision in this regard was entirely illegal and unconstitutional. She said that when the government knew that these 17 castes could not get the benefits under Scheduled Castes category, why did the it take such a decision.
“This is a big fraud with the members of these 17 castes. They will neither be able to receive benefits under 27 per cent quota of the OBC, nor under the SC category as the state government cannot list or remove them from any category through its orders,” the BSP chief said.
Mayawati said that if this had to be done, the quota under SC category should be increased so that the newly-inducted 17 OBC castes got the benefit. She said that in the past too, such demands had been raised but the Centre did nothing about it.
The BSP chief said that earlier when the Samajwadi Party government had taken such a decision in an “illegal way” to “deceive’ these 17 castes”, the BSP had opposed it.
She said that in 2007, the BSP government had written to the then Congress government at the Centre and demanded that besides including these 17 castes in SC category, the quota of this category should also be increased,.
“It is unfortunate that neither the Congress, nor the BJP governments at the Centre did anything about it,” she said.
Mayawati demanded that the state government immediately withdraw the “undemocratic order” and increase the SC quota to ensure that the category’s interests were not harmed.
The Yogi government had issued a directive last week to include 17 OBCs in Scheduled Caste list. The castes are Nishad, Bind, Mallah, Kewat, Kashyap, Bhar, Dhivar, Batham, Machua, Prajapati, Rajbhar, Kahar, Kumhar, Dhimar, Manjhi, Turaha and Gaudia.
The move can steal the opposition’s thunder, especially of the SP and the BSP, which have tried to sympathise with these 17 OBCs in the past by assuring them of bringing them in the SC bracket.
It will also enable these socially and economically backward castes the benefits of reservation after removing legal irritants. The move will leave greater space in OBC quota for the remaining caste groups.
Meanwhile, Mayawati will start divisional review meetings in Lucknow from Tuesday to strengthen the party before the announcement of bypolls to 12 vacant UP Assembly seats.
Besides discussing other organisational issues, the BSP chief might also direct party leaders to suggest winnable candidates for the coming UP Assembly bypolls.