The Times of India News Service

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee has set up an eight-member committee under the convenorship of former chief minister Ram Naresh Yadav to work out modalities for securing proportional representations to most other backward castes in jobs while keeping in mind the social configuration of other backward classes in the state. Talking to reporters on Monday Uttar Paradesh Congress Committee president Sriprakash Jaiswal said that the committee would submit its report in a month. After submission of the report by the committee, the UPCC president said, the Congress party would work for securing reservation to the MOBCs.

Jaiswal said that apart from Ram Naresh Yadav, Shyam Lal Yadav, Bhanu Pratap Singh, Khurshid Ahmad Ansari, Rajendra Singh Lodhi, Vedram Nagar, Ram Singh Verma and Lal Chand Nishad would be the members of the committee. Reacting to the chief minister's announcement for giving reservation to the MOBCs, the UPCC president said that the Jansangh, the earlier incarnation of the Bharatiya Janata Party, had always opposed reservation for the dalits. Even when the recommendations of Mandal Commission were being implemented by various state governments, the BJP leaders were in the forefront of the agitation launched against it, said Jaiswal. Calling the government's decision to give reservations to the MOBCs "a gimmick", the UPCC president said the manner in which it was being enforced would only aggravate caste conflicts. He said the MOBCs knew it well that the BJP had little sympathy for them and thus, there was no appreciation for the sops offered to them. Jaiswal said that the Congress party would not mind even constitutional amendments for giving the economically forward castes 10 per cent reservations in jobs. While giving reservations to the MOBCs, the government should have taken their social structure in mind, said Jaiswal.

The UPCC president recalled how in the eighties, the Congress government had reserved 15 per cent jobs for the OBCs which was later raised to 27 per cent in the wake of the implementation of the Mandal Commission report.