Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday responded to the Supreme Court verdict on reservation in appointments and promotions with a sharp attack on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Gandhi said both of them had always been against reservations to the weaker sections of society but the Congress would not let quotas in jobs and education come to an end.
“I want to tell SC/ST/OBC & Dalits that we’ll never let reservations come to an end no matter how much Modi ji or Mohan Bhagwat dream of it,” Gandhi told reporters, according to news agency ANI.
Gandhi also claimed that the BJP and RSS ideology was against reservations. “They never wanted scheduled caste and scheduled tribes to progress. They’re breaking the institutional structure,” he said.
Rahul Gandhi’s attack comes against the backdrop of the Supreme Court verdict that the government isn’t bound to provide reservation for appointments and promotions to public posts. A bench of the top court had also ruled that courts could not direct states to reserve jobs or positions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/STs).
Rahul Gandhi’s party has demanded that the government file a review petition against the top court’s verdict by a two-judge bench of justices L Nageswara Rao and Hemant Gupta.
The verdict has also worried two constituents of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) — the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and the Janata Dal (United) — that spoke out against the verdict on Sunday.
LJP president Chirag Paswan had tweeted his party’s disagreement and echoed the Congress stand that the Centre should take immediate measures to ensure that the reservation provision continues in jobs and promotion without a change.
JD(U) national general secretary and spokesperson KC Tyagi asked the Centre to bring an Ordinance in the ongoing session of Parliament to ensure that the system of reservations in promotions in government jobs to SCs and STs continues. “We will urge the central government to pass a resolution in Parliament on this issue in the current budget session,” he said.
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) spokesperson Manoj Jha echoed Tyagi’s views. “The central government must file a review petition against the verdict as otherwise it shall undermine the idea of social justice and shall give a regressive direction to the same,” Jha said.
