New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday accused the Centre of playing the “OBC card” to hide its failures and demanded from it the formation of a separate department, reservation, for other backward classes.
The party’s OBC department head Ajay Singh Yadav told reporters that the central government should release the caste data from the 2011 census and increase the existing limit of ‘creamy layer’ from Rs 8 lakh to Rs 12 lakh per annum.
Yadav also said that the increased popularity of Rahul Gandhi after the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ has struck fear in the BJP.
“It was decided in the Congress convention held in Raipur that the Congress will pressure the government to come out with a caste-based census… If our government is formed in 2024, we will conduct a caste-based census,” he said.
Yadav said that a separate department should be made for OBC so that the OBC classes can get full benefits of the schemes.
He demanded that SC, ST, OBC and minority women get separate representation in the proposed 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha.
Congress leader Subhashini Yadav alleged that the Modi government is playing the “OBC card” due to its “failures” such as demonetisation, GST, ‘black farm laws’, Adani case, Chinese incursions, and the success of ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ and is instead accusing Rahul Gandhi of insulting OBCs.
“It is an insult to our entire society to describe Lalit Modi and Nirav Modi as OBCs,” she said.
Subhashini, the daughter of socialist leader and former Union Minister late Sharad Yadav, also accused the BJP of being double-faced on the OBC issue.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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