New Delhi: Eyeing the most backward classes (MBC) votes in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said his party would give the community quota within quota if voted to power.
Party General Secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters that Gandhi gave this assurance to party leaders from the Most Backward Castes in Uttar Pradesh at a meeting on Saturday.
Azad, who is party affairs in-charge in Uttar Pradesh, said Gandhi assured the leaders that the party would include the promise in its election manifesto and implement it if voted to power.
Congress is in political wilderness in the state for 27 long years with the Mandal-Mandir politics coming on the horizon and emergence of BSP.
The Congress leader lamented that only a section of the backward classes have accrued most of the benefits of reservation while the most backwards or extremely backward classes remain laggards.
In an apparent dig at SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, Azad said benefits of reservations have gone to only some dominant castes in the state while the most backward castes have been neglected.
There have often been accusations that the Samajwadi Party rule in the state have helped the dominant Yadav community gain the most.
Azad said Congress has been instrumental in bringing reservation within reservation for the most backward classes in 10-odd states, including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Replying to a question as to how much of the 27 per cent reservation for the backwards will go to the MBCs, he said a high-level panel would go into the issue in a time-bound manner to suggest modalities, as had happened in some states earlier.
