Congress leader and LoP in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi during the extended Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting, at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Memorial, in Ahmedabad.
Credit: PTI Photo
Ahmedabad: Top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday asked party leaders not to shy away or be scared of raising issues related to Dalits, Adivasis, OBCs and minorities even as a draft resolution discussed by an extended Congress Working Committee sought to take credit for the protection of quota regime in the country while accusing the ruling BJP of seeking to end it through privatisation.
Sources said Rahul, who the draft resolution described as "torch bearer of social justice", told the meeting the party's outreach to the OBCs and other marginalised has to increase and highlighted the absence of quota for OBCs, SCs and STs in private educational institutions despite available Constitutional avenues.
He said that there was "no need" to shy away or be scared about raising issues related to the minorities and if one follows the agenda of social justice and 'Nafrat ka Baazar mein Mohabbat ka Dukan' (Shops of Love in the Market of Hatred' along with issues like unemployment they could gather more support.
"We performed well in Uttar Pradesh and if we follow this, we could even win Uttar Pradesh," Rahul is learnt to have told the meeting. However, he admitted as he did earlier that they had not done enough for the OBCs and they had moved away from the Congress.
He also highlighted the need for Caste Census, which is an "important tool" that provides "real picture" about socio-economic conditions. "That is exactly why the BJP is not ready to do this," he added.
In the draft resolution put up before the extended CWC, the party said social justice formed the "ideological core" of Congress and no country can truly progress by leaving behind the oppressed, marginalised and the backward communities, emphasising that it formed the foundation of quotas.
The resolution sought to give the party the credit for saving the quota regime. "History bears witness t the fact that when the Supreme Court struck down resevations in 1951, it was the Congress government under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru that enactd the First Amendment to the Constitution...Henceforth, the path for reservation based social justice was forever safeguarded."
The draft resolution also said it was the Congress government that implemented the Mandal Commission report and gave 27% quota to OBCs, even as the party was accused of putting the report in cold storage for over a decade. It also referred to the 2006 Constitutional Amendment which provided 27% quota for OBCs in educational institutions.
"The initiative for social justice translated into reality by the First Constitutional Amendment in 1951 is now being decisively carried forward" by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul.
The 2011 Socio-Economic Caste Census conducted by Congress government has "not been maliciously published" by the present government, the draft alleged. It also said the government has "continuously conspired to dismantle the existing reservation framework".
Referring to PSUs being sold, it said privatisation was leading to automatic abolition of reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs while 30 lakh government vacancies are yet to be filled.
"If posts are not filled up, it automatically takes away the opportunity of reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs. The 'contract employment' and outsourced employment in government jobs is a deliberate attack on reservations," it sai