Opposition takes on govt for not checking 'divisive forces'

Opposition members in the Rajya Sabha on Friday attacked the government for not checking divisive forces and demanded a new legislation to introduce reservation in private sector jobs.

Participating in a debate on commitment to the Constitution, JD(U) president Sharad Yadav said there was a need to introspect how much of the spirit of the Constitution has been implemented in matters relating to equality, justice and liberty.

Citing the recruitment in government sector were dwindling, Yadav demanded the government to bring new legislation to introduce reservation in private sector jobs.  
Dalits and tribals were not finding adequate place in higher position in government jobs, Yadav said, adding that there had only been one Dalit secretary and there was hardly a chance that one would become a Cabinet secretary.

To this, Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi stood up and said though he was not opposing Yadav, but as per details, there had been around four Dalit secretaries in the present government.

Sitaram Yechury of the CPM criticised the government for opening up FDI in several sectors.

He said the deprived section of the society was at the receiving end due to policy adopted by successive governments.

He wondered why the government was observing November 25 as Constitution Day when the Constitution came into operation on January 26, 1950.

Referring to statements like Lord Ganesh was “an example of plastic surgery” and birth of Karna was “stent technology”, he said such statements had come from the prime minister himself. “You are only reviving hard-core Hindutva agenda,” Yechury said. Taking a dig at the BJP, he said its governments in Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat had curtailed voting rights, the most important right given by the Constitution by bringing new rules to govern local elections.

He also quoted from a book, “We or Our Nationhood Defined” written by M S Golwalkar, the second Sarsanghchalak of RSS, to take a dig at the BJP over intolerance.

Reading out excerpts from it, Yechury said Golwalkar wrote that “Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by”.