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Akhilesh Yadav demands special assembly session on OBC reservation in urban local body elections
Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said a special session of the state assembly was necessary to enable the government and the opposition to discuss the issue
Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said the Uttar Pradesh government should convene a special session of the state assembly to discuss reservation for other backward classes (OBCs) in urban local body polls.
“If the BJP government’s conscience is clear on OBC reservation in the urban local bodies, then it should convene a special session of the assembly so that the state government and opposition parties can discuss the issue,” he said at a press conference.
he Uttar Pradesh government has moved the Supreme Court on the issue.
The BJP won power at the Centre as well as in Uttar Pradesh with OBC votes but the backward communities have been denied reservation, he said, adding that the Samajwadi Party has been demanding a caste census.
The BJP government had constituted a commission to count the OBC employees working on class three and four posts in various state government departments, the SP chief said. The commission had submitted its report but the state government had not made it public, he said.
Akhilesh Yadav also said even the U.P. Backward Class Commission constituted in 1994 had been made defunct.
GOT NO INVITE FROM CONGRESS FOR YATRA: AKHILESH
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday appeared to distance himself from Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra led by Rahul Gandhi that will enter Uttar Pradesh on January 3 through Loni in Ghaziabad.
Addressing a press conference here, Akhilesh Yadav said, “The Samajwadi Party has a different ideology while the BJP and Congress are the same. I have received no invitation from the Congress, but our sentiments are with their yatra.”
The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) are also likely to skip the yatra.
Earlier, Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president Brijlal Khabri had said prominent opposition party leaders, including SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, BSP supremo Mayawati and RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary, have been invited to join the yatra.
