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Kiren Rijiju's ‘naive or fool’ jibe at Rahul Gandhi over Cong MP's OBC remark
During his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, Rahul Gandhi asked how many Dalits, Adivasis, and backward people are there in high courts.
Union minister Kiren Rijiju on Monday slammed Congress MP Rahul Gandhi over his remark questioning the Centre over representation of Other Backward Classes (OBC) in bureaucracy and judiciary.
While addressing his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Uttar Pradesh, Gandhi said,"Congress leader Rahul Gandhi says, "Tell me how many Dalits, Adivasis, and backward people are there in high courts? You don't have courage, you all are sleeping. There are 650 high court judges. You have 73% of the population...Tell me how many people do you have among the bureaucrats?"
Rijiju took to social media platform X and said,"Today Rahul Gandhi again said there are only 3 OBC Secretaries to Govt of India and negligible OBC Judges. Is he naive or a fool? A fresh IAS Officer can't just become Secretary and a fresh lawyer can't become a Judge of High Court or SC directly."
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“The current batch of Secretaries are generally related to Batches, which came in or before 1992. At that time, there were reserved categories for SC & ST, but not OBC. OBC classification into All India Service (AIS) came only post 1995 following the Court verdict,” the minister added.
“Anyone who understands the service and the progression of the service knows how the batch system works in gaining seniority. Has Congress Party done anything in their time to promote more OBC/SC/ST IAS Officers and SC/ST/OBC Judges,” Rijiju said in his attack on Gandhi.
“This man wants to destabilize Indian society and create chaos with the support of anti-India forces. But with the blessings of people of India, PM @narendramodi ji is powering India forward with the spirit of Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas! #NewIndia is #UnitedIndia,” he said.
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This is not the first time when Rahul Gandhi has raised the issue of representation of OBCs in the government. During a special session of Parliament last September, Gandhi had made a strong pitch for caste census and reservation of backward classes.
“I looked at what is the participation of the OBC community in these institutions. There are 90 secretaries to the Government of India who manage the core of India: I was shocked to know only 3 secretaries are from the OBC community. And they control just 5% of the Indian budget. Out of ₹44 lakh crore, they control just ₹2.7 lakh crore," the Wayanad MP had claimed in the Lok Sabha.
