Thiruvananthapuram: The Congress and the BJP have taken a cautious stand on the Cabinet decision to extend 10 per cent reservation to the economically backward among the forward communities in the five devaswom boards. With two major communities, Ezhava and Nair, coming under the economic reservation, political parties are guarded on the issue. The Congress leaders are also busy with Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala’s Padayorukkam.
The UDF’s manifesto for the Assembly elections had not mentioned anything about economic reservation. A top Congress leader told DC that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had taken a hasty decision on the reservation when his government was embroiled in the Thomas Chandy issue. “Once Chennithala’s Padayorukkam concludes here on December 1, the political affairs committee will meet and discuss the reservation issue,” the leader said. BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan opined that Mr Pinarayi Vijayan should have held talks with all political parties and community organisations.
“The LDF government is trying to create instability among different communities. They should have done the preparatory work for it and talked to the stakeholders,” he said. When the Mandal commission report was implemented by the V.P. Singh government at the centre in 1990, the BJP held that along with the backward communities, there should be reservation for the forward communities as well.
BJP state general secretary M.T. Ramesh told DC that the appointments in devaswom boards were not taking place now. “It is an eyewash by Vijayan. His claim that this is the first such initiative is false as the Rajasthan government had decided to bring a Bill for it,” said Mr Ramesh. It may be recalled that the Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan has decided to introduce a Bill in the upcoming session to raise the OBC quota from 21 percent to 26 percent for granting 5 percent reservation to Gujjars.
