Former BJP Scheduled Caste Morch chief Sanjay Paswan has welcomed the Supreme Court verdict allowing sub-groups in the 15% reservation for SCs but called for a discussion on certain aspects of the issue so that distributive justice is ensured. This is a reiteration of his view that there should be “quota within quota” which has faced objection from other Dalit leaders in the party.
Asked if the SC verdict is a vindication of his long-held opinion, Paswan told ET, “Sub-categorisation in reservation for Dalits will ensure distributive justice. But I believe this should come with the rider that this should be done on the basis of family and not any Dalit caste as a whole.”
He maintains that any Dalit caste should not be kept out just because a sizable number of people from it clear the top government examinations. This should be applicable to those Dalit families which have benefitted from reservations in the last three generations.
“I gave the slogan ‘no more (than) four (generations)’. If three generations in a family have got reservations, the fourth generation should not be entitled to it. Since Independence, we have seen more than three generations. In my case, my father was an engineer, I became a minister and my son is a professor. The fourth generation in my family should not get reservation,” Paswan said.
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Paswan was a member of the 13th Lok Sabha and served as a minister of state in the Human Resource Developmentministry.
Sub-categorisation of SC where some castes are removed from the list as their members have got into the civil services and other creamy government jobs will harm those families from the same caste whose members did not make it due to various socio-economic disadvantages.
