Following a meeting between a Bihar delegation and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress has reminded the Centre that removing the 50% cap on reservations is critical if social justice measures are to have any real impact. The party is attempting to lob a political hot potato at the ruling BJP amid renewed hype over a caste census.
“It is important to constitutionally legitimise the reservation percentage in excess of 50% which in a sense is in a legal ‘trishanku’, that is in suspended animation, with challenges pending in courts and lack of clarity about their legality and validity,” Congress MP Abhishek Singhvi said on Wednesday, pointing out that over 30 states and UTs have exceeded the 50 percent quota cap. He emphasised that in some states, the breakdown of the 50% threshold includes EWS quotas.
According to Singhvi, the government and Parliament recently given states the right to create their own OBC lists, but “there is no scope of implementing those lists” because most states have more than a 50% quota. He stated, “Surely the Parliament was not intending to pass an empty 127th Constitutional Amendment Bill.”
