Congress MP Ganiben Thakor has demanded that the existing 27 per cent reservation given to OBCs should be divided into two parts for better representation of all castes falling under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category in Gujarat.
Congress MP Ganiben Thakor has demanded that the existing 27 per cent reservation given to OBCs should be divided into two parts for better representation of all castes falling under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category in Gujarat.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 17, Thakor said splitting of OBC reservation was necessary as out of the total 146 backward castes in Gujarat, only five to 10 castes were getting majority of the benefits while other “extremely backward castes” were getting just one or two per cent benefits.
Thakor, the only Congress Lok Sabha member from Gujarat, said these extremely backward castes of Gujarat include Thakor, Koli, Vadi, Dabgar, Kharva, Madari, Nat, Salat, Vanjara, Dhobi, Cobbler and Vaghri.
Thakor, who represents the Banaskantha seat in Parliament, said that to remove inequality, the 27 per cent OBC reservation should be divided into two parts, in which 7 per cent reservation should be for those castes which have got the most benefit till now and 20 per cent reservation should be for the most backward castes which have got almost no benefit in the last 20 years.
He claimed that if this division is not done in OBC reservation, then people of extremely backward castes will remain poor while five to ten castes will continue to prosper by getting maximum benefit of reservation.
Thakor said that many other states like Bihar, Odisha, Haryana and West Bengal have implemented this system of dividing OBC reservation to bring equality among all castes.