Ex-PM H D Deve Gowda backs internal quota

Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda on Tuesday said all states should provide internal reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs.

In a statement, Gowda welcomed the Supreme Court’s stand allowing states to create sub-categories among social groups for reservation.

“This will be a game-changer across the nation,” Gowda said. “It deepens the idea of justice, and allows the truly oppressed and powerless to benefit from the provisions of affirmative action that our humane and progressive Constitution offers.”

That the SCs, STs and OBCs are a homogenous group was an assumption, the JD(S) patriarch said. “...in reality they are very vibrant and diverse. Inequalities within the groups with regard to affirmative action had become apparent in the recent decades. It had to be corrected. Now that it has happened, I wholeheartedly welcome this judgement,” Gowda said, urging all states to implement internal reservation.