CHENNAI: PMK president and Rajya Sabha member Anbumani Ramadoss has urged the Union govt to remove the 50% cap on reservation and hold a caste-wise census.
Addressing the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, Anbumani said the parliament did not fix the 50% cap on reservation, but the Supreme Court did. He regretted that the same Supreme Court permitted reservation for economically weaker sections, which exceeded the 50% cap on reservation.
Anbumani termed the concept of the creamy layer for the OBCs as unconstitutional. The creamy layer concept was not applied to the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes, but why only for OBCs, he asked.
There are about 15% scheduled caste people in the country, and they are given 15% reservation in education and employment. There are around 7.5% of scheduled tribe people in the country, and they are given 7.5% reservation.
There are around 63% of OBCs in the country. According to the Mandal Commission, there are 52% of OBCs in the country, but they are given only 27%, he said.
“Why this discrimination to OBCs, time and again? To add to that, there is a concept called the creamy layer. Why do we have a creamy layer? Is it in our Constitution? It is unconstitutional. There is no creamy layer for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Why only for OBCs?” he said.
The Union govt and state govts have been acting based on a 95-year-old caste data evolved by the British in 1931. “Why don’t we have modern data? We need to have modern contemporary data to have more affirmative action and to know the social stature of all downtrodden sections of the country. Why do we hesitate for that? Seventy-eight years after Independence, so many govts have come, none of them took caste data. But all our reservations are based on caste. Why can’t we do that? Let’s set right the issue. Just add a column for OBCs in the census,” he said.
