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Sangh Parivar never opposed reservations, says Mohan Bhagwat amid row
“The Sangh is of the opinion that the reservations should be extended for as long as they are needed,” the RSS chief said in Hyderabad.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday declared that the Sangh Parivar had “never opposed reservations extended to certain groups," with his statement coming at a time when opposition parties are claiming that if the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gets a third successive term by winning the ongoing national polls, its government will “change" the Constitution of India and do away with the reservation policy.
“The Sangh is of the opinion that the reservations should be extended for as long as they are needed,” Bhagwat said at a programme at an educational institute in Hyderabad.
RSS is the BJP's ideological mentor; in these polls, the saffron party is targeting a hattrick of parliamentary majority, having won 282 seats and 303 seats on its own in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, respectively. This time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a call for more than 370 seats for the BJP alone, and over 400 for the party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), in the 543-member Lower House of Parliament.
However, it is this clarion call of “400 paar” (over 400 seats), and public statements by several party leaders (including some Lok Sabha contenders) about “changing” the Constitution, that has given rivals the opportunity to allege that should the BJP win again, and by such a massive margin, both the Constitution and reservations will be “ended.”
The BJP, in turn, has countered the Congress-led INDIA bloc's charge by alleging that it is the grand old party, which, if voted to office, will “change the Constitution and rob the Dalits and OBCs of quota benefits and prepare the ground for religion-based reservation to favour its vote-bank.”
Ahead of the 2015 Bihar assembly elections, Bhagwat, the RSS chief, had made a controversial statement, calling for a “review” of the reservation policy. Seizing upon his remark, the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance), which went on to trounce the BJP.
(With PTI inputs)
