KCR’s ST quota announcement aimed at targeting BJP ahead of state election

The chief minister, popularly called KCR, made the announcement at a meeting of adivasis and banjaras in Hyderabad on September 17.

Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s latest announcement on increasing the reservations for Scheduled Tribes from 6 per cent to 10 per cent is being viewed as an attempt to score a point over the BJP ahead of the next year’s assembly election.

Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s latest announcement on increasing the reservations for Scheduled Tribes from 6 per cent to 10 per cent is being viewed as an attempt to score a point over the BJP ahead of the next year’s assembly election. (ANI)

The chief minister, popularly called KCR, made the announcement at a meeting of adivasis and banjaras in Hyderabad on September 17. He declared that he would issue a government order (GO) increasing the quota for the STs within a week and challenged the Narendra Modi government to approve the same, if it had any sincerity towards the uplift of the STs.

“I will leave it to the prime minister whether he will accept the increased quota for the STs or face the music from them, as it is going to turn a noose around his neck in the next elections,” KCR said.

Though it is nearly 10 days since the chief minister made the announcement, there has been no such GO from the government yet. “There are several legal hurdles in issuing the GO. The law department is looking into them,” said a senior official in the state secretariat, who refused to be named.

Interestingly, on September 20, three days after KCR made the announcement, the Chhattisgarh high court struck down a similar order of that state government that provided 58% reservation to SCs, STs and OBCs in recruitment and entrance examinations in the state.

A division bench of chief justice AK Goswami and Justice PP Sahu quashed the reservation policy and said no special case is made out for breaching the reservation ceiling limit of 50% (fixed by the Supreme Court in the past in Indira Sawhney vs union government case in 1992), while increasing the reservation.

“Inadequacy of representation in services under the state or inadequacy of representation in educational institutions is relevant to the extent reservation is sought to be pegged below 50%,” the Chhattisgarh high court said.

In Telangana, the total percentage of reservations being implemented in education and employment is 50%, including 15% for SCs, 6% for STs and 29% for OBCs (including 4% for Muslims).

If KCR issues order increasing the ST quota to 10%, then the total percentage of reservations will go up to 54%, which is against the ceiling of 50% fixed by the Supreme Court. If anybody approaches the court, it will automatically get struck down.

“Moreover, we shall also examine whether the ST quota could be increased by a mere executive order or through passage of a legislation in the assembly,” the official quoted above said.

In fact, the Telangana assembly, on April 16, 2017, had passed a bill increasing the reservations for STs from 6% to 10% and that of backward Muslims from 4% to 12%, in education and employment.

The bill was sent to the Centre for approval, but it was caught in legal wrangle as several people had moved the Supreme Court challenging the quota for Muslims based on religion. As a result, the increased quota for STs was also caught in the legal battle.

“It is the responsibility of the Centre to approve the increased quota for STs, irrespective of the quota for the Muslims. We have written several letters to the Centre in this regard, but there was no response,” state tribal welfare minister Satyavathi Rathod said.

At the September 17 meeting, KCR also accused the Centre of sitting over the state government’s bill passed more than five years ago. “Who is stopping Modi from approving the bill? If the Centre approves it, we shall pass the order within five minutes,” he said.

BJP state president Bandi Sanjay, however, said the BJP was not against the increase in the ST quota. “The fact is that KCR has no sincerity in issuing the government order. He simply wants to pass the buck to the Centre and gain political mileage,” Sanjay said.