Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) has called for an increase in the overall reservation quota for backward classes, proportionate to their share in the state population.
Promising a special discussion on the issue of BC reservation in the House, KCR told the state legislative assembly on Monday that there was a need for a detailed analysis of the issue.
The Muslim minority constitutes 13 per cent of the population in Telangana, and a recent survey by the Sudheer Committee and state BC Commission found 90 per cent of them qualify as economically and socially backward.
“There cannot be different laws from Tamil Nadu and Telangana,” KCR said. “We will request the Centre and the Supreme Court,so that Telangana should also get reservations like Tamil Nadu,” he said while replying to the debate on the state budget.
He was referring to the different yardsticks for reservation quotas in different states. While Tamil Nadu has a total reservation quota of 69 per cent (including 3.5 per cent quota for the backward Muslims), in the case of Telangana, the Supreme Court has said total reservations should not cross the limit of 50 per cent.
Presently the backward sections of Muslim minority in Telangana have only 4 per cent reservation and the total reservation in the state stands at 49 per cent.
If the state government passes the legislation of 12 per cent reservation each for the minorities and the STs, the total will go upto 74 per cent.
While the BJP was raising heckles against the reservations for poor Muslims in Telangana, backward sections of minorities are enjoying the benefits of reservation in all the southern states including Andhra Pradesh where the BJP was sharing power with Telugu Desam. Rejecting the criticism by the BJP against the proposal of increasing the reservation quota for the backward sections of Muslim minority in the state, “We are not proposing religion based reservation. We only want to increase the present quota and fulfill the promise made in the election manifesto”.
KCR told the House that his government was gearing to increase the reservation for the scheduled tribes and the minorities and there will be a special discussion in the state assembly within a week.
arlier the minister for industries and municipal administration K Taraka Rama Rao told the media that the population of backward classes was high in the state and there was a need for increasing their quota. “The scentre should understand this and allow the state government to increase the reservations on the lines of Tamil Nadu. The state should have the power to take key decisions on such issue to protest the interest of the people”.
Asserting that the reservations were not based on religion or community but on the backwardness, KTR lashed out at the BJP for its misleading propaganda. “Despite our clarification they are continuing with their propaganda”, he said referring to the allegations of the state BJP President K Lakshman that the TRS government was pursuing vote bank politics by giving reservations to Muslims.
In his speech in the state assembly today the Chief Minister countered the allegations on opposition that the state government had failed in solving the problems and fulfilling the promises.
Listing out the achievements of his government during last two and a half years, the Chief Minister said that Telangana had become number one in welfare in the entire country. “Even the Prime Minister himself has praised Telangana in Chief Secretaries’ meeting and asked the Chief Ministers of other states to adopt it as a model”. But L Lakshman (BJP) and Uttam Kumar Reddy (congress) cant see this, KCR quipped asking them to see the reality and be constructive in their criticisms.
He said that the state was following unique mix of the Amartya Sen and Arvind Panigarhiya models of economy.
He said that his government had fulfilled the promise of making the state free of power shutdown. “We have successfully ended the power crisis which the state faced during the Congress rule”, he said.
