Hyderabad: The BJP winning Assembly elections in Gujarat with one of its poll plank being rejection of any more reservations above the 50 per cent ceiling will impact Telangana government’s reservation policy.
The state government increased reservations for muslims and STs to take the overall quotas to 62 per cent, and sent the proposal to Centre for approval in April 2017. The Centre has kept a decision on the issue pending. With BJP making its stand on the issue clear in the Gujarat election, the prospect of it giving the nod to TS request gets further queered.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had proposed to increase reservations for SCs and BCs in proportion to their population, which would extend the quotas to more than 80 per cent.
Mr Rao entrusted the responsibility of making recommendations on BC quota hike to the BC Com-mission, which is on the job and expected to submit its report in a month or two.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while referring to Congress promise of providing reservations for Patels during the Gujarat election campaign, had said that reservations above 50 per cent limit prescribed by Supreme Court could not be violated.
Given this, the TS government may now have to weigh its options over how to go about on the reservation issue since Mr Rao has already made an announcement that the state government would be forced to move Supreme Court for approval to have reservations above the 50 per cent limit on the lines of that in force in Tamil Nadu.
Increasing quotas for Muslims and STs remains a major poll promise made by the TRS during 2014 elections.
After assuming power, the government took three years to draft the quota hike Bill and got it approved in the Legislature.
The CM has taken up the quota issue with the PM several times in meetings over the past eight months. The CM said even in his several press conferences and the Assembly, the PM was in favour of a hike in reservations in TS and that the Centre would give its nod soon.
However, the Gujarat elections has changed the situation altogether.
Congress promised reservations to Patidars, which would exceed the 50 per cent limit in the state. This was opposed by Mr Modi on the grounds that the SC orders on 50 per cent cap could not be violated. Despite this stand, the BJP has emerged victorious in Gujarat giving strength to Mr Modi to reject any quota hikes above 50 per cent.
TRS party sources said, “We don’t see any chances of PM approving fresh quotas in TS after the BJP won the Gujarat elections on the reservations plank. We are now left with the only option of filing a case in Supreme Court against the Centre, questioning why the Centre had allowed Tamil Nadu to have 69 per cent quota for over two decades while denying the same to Telangana.”
The CM is gearing up to take legal recourse after making a final request to PM in this regard, said party sources.
Telangana BJP leaders too have been strongly opposing an increase in quotas for Muslims and campaigning hard against it. They have requested PM Modi and party national president Amit Shah not to approve any hike based on religion.
