Quota sought for SCs in government work contracts

The Scheduled Castes department of the State unit of the Congress is all set to demand reservation for the SCs in private sector and also reservation while awarding government work to contractors.

A resolution to this effect is likely to be passed at a one-day convention of the leaders of the community to be held on January 6 (Monday) at the Palace Grounds in Bangalore. The conference will be inaugurated by Digvijaya Singh, AICC general secretary in charge of party affairs in Karnataka. AICC SC wing chairman K Raju will preside over the conference.

Heads of Scheduled Caste cells from the block level to the State level would be attending.
Addressing reporters on Saturday, State Congress SC department chairman N Manjunath said that the conference would appeal to the government to weed out bogus SC caste certificates issued over a period of time.

He said that on Tuesday, the executive committee meeting of the SC wing would be chaired by Raju. He would hold meetings with the party’s SC elected representatives at the KPCC office on the same day.

Manjunath said that in Madhya Pradesh, when Singh was the chief minister, there was reservation for the SCs in awarding work contracts.

According to sources, Singh will arrive in Bangalore on Sunday morning. He has no scheduled programme. He will chair the co-ordination committee meeting on Monday.
A section of senior MLCs isplanning to meet Singh to petition him, seeking ministerial berths for MLCs. At present only one MLC is a minister. Three ministerial berths are vacant.

It is learnt that MLCs Veeranna Mattikatti, Motamma, M R Seetharam, K Govindaraj, Allam Prabhu Patil, Veerkumar Patil among others are planning to meet Singh to pressure the government to consider MLCs too while appointing ministers.