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HP House ratifies bill to extend SC/ST quota in legislatures
A heated exchange ensued between the ruling and opposition benches when BJP legislator targeted former PM Jawaharlal Nehru
A special session of Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha was held in Shimla on Tuesday wherein Constitution amendment bill to extend quota to SCs and STs in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies by another 10 years was ratified by unanimous voice vote.
The bill will become an Act only after ratification by at least 50% of the state assemblies.
Chief minister (CM) Jai Ram Thakur, while moving the motion for ratification of the bill, said, “The constitution provides reservation for members of SC/ST communities in Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies of states. Since the reservation is scheduled to expire on January 25, 2020, the bill seeks to extend it till January 25, 2030 and I urge the house to ratify the bill.”
Thakur said there were several laws in force, but members of the SC and ST communities were still subjected to discrimination.
Governor Bandaru Dattatreya said the bill had to be ratified under Clause 2 (d) of Article 368 of the Constitution and the Rajya Sabha secretariat has to be apprised of it by January 10.
Leader of opposition Mukesh Agnihotri said the Congress wholeheartedly supported the ratification motion. He, however, raised questions on the brief address of the governor. He said either the government should have called the session in December or there should have been a full governor’s address.
Supporting the bill, the CPI (M) MLA from Theog, Rakesh Singha, said the country failed to provide justice to SCs and STs in last 70 years, which was why it was required to extend the reservation for them in Lok Sabha and state assemblies.
A heated exchange ensued between the ruling and opposition benches when BJP legislator from Chintpurni, Balbir Singh, said former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was initially against reservation. Congress MLA Ram Lal Thakur raised objection to Balbir’s remark.
State social justice and empowerment minister Rajiv Saizal said he agreed with the Congress MLAs who said that Dalits were not allowed to enter some temples in the state.
Citing an incident, Saizal said, “Nachan MLA Vinod Kumar and I were once not allowed to enter a temple.”
Congress MLA Sukhvinder Sukhu said if the minister was not allowed to enter the temple, he was provided protection under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, that was formulated by the then PM, Rajiv Gandhi. To this, Saizal said he wanted to “throw light on the reality” and it should be taken in that sense only. He said even former Dalit ministers from the Congress would have been denied entry into some temples during the previous Congress regimes.
Dalhousie legislator Asha Kumar pointed out that Punjab and Haryana assemblies were holding their sessions for three days for ratification of the bill and called for the state assembly’s special session to be extended for a longer period to discuss the bill in detail.
Agriculture minister Ram Lal Markanda, MLAs Harshwardhan Chauhan, Hans Raj, Rakesh Pathania, Jagat Singh Negi and Nand Lal also spoke in support of the bill’s ratification.
Earlier, a condolence motion was passed to express grief over the demise of former member Ninju Ram, who passed away on December 25. Ram was elected from Rampur on a Janata Party ticket in 1977.
