Congress shedding ‘çrocodile tears’ over BCs welfare: BJP leader Laxman

BJP accuses Congress of using caste census for political gain, neglecting BC welfare, contrasting Modi's proactive approach.

The Congress Party and its leader Rahul Gandhi intention is to ‘gain politically’ by talking about caste census and have been shedding ‘crocodile tears’ on welfare of Backward Classes (BCs) after strongly opposing reservations to them for decades, charged BJP Rajya Sabha MP and OBC Morcha president K. Laxman on Friday (November 8, 2024).

The Congress Government in Karnataka has taken up a caste census and had refused to make it public following internal dissension. Similarly, former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had conducted another survey through a private agency but the contents remains secret. “Mr. Gandhi and Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy should explain whether it is the Congress model not to make the data public,” he demanded at a press conference held at the party office on Friday (November 8, 2024).

The Chief Minister has been professing ‘fake love’ towards the BCs after failing to give due representation to them in the cabinet and in the corporations chairpersons posts, he said. The BJP leader blamed the Congress Party as being “solely responsible for lack of a cöuntrywide caste census so far” and accused the party of not taking up a single step for the benefit of BCs.

In contrast, the Modi Government has 27 BC Ministers and the NDA led Bihar Government has completed the caste survey in 2022 and had hiked quotas accordingly. The Modi Government had also taken the initiative to ensure BCs quota is followed in the central educational institutions.

“From the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to Rajiv Gandhi, the Gandhi family and the Congress Party had always cheated the BCs denying their legitimate share through quotas disregarding various commission reports including the Kaka Kalelkar Report of 1953. The party should apologise to the BCs for ignoring their rights all these decades,” he maintained.

Mr. Laxman claimed that Nehru wrote to the States about the importance of Imparting proper education to all rather than go for caste based quotas thereby insulting the discriminated sections including the SC/STs. While Indira Gandhi Government did not bother about any BC Commission, Rajiv Gandhi had opposed the Mandal Committee recommendations when the VP Singh Government sought to promulgate it and batted for economic criteria, he explained.