Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday welcomed the choice of the Supreme Courtroom upholding 10% reservation to economically weaker sections (EWS) however demanded the elimination of the 50% cap on reservations, making a recent pitch for a national caste census.
Kumar, one of many authentic leaders of the Mandal motion within the Nineties that led to reservation for different backward courses (OBCs), has ceaselessly raised the demand for a caste census prior to now, a problem that led to a rising rift along with his erstwhile ally, the Bharatiya Janata Celebration.
“That is proper, however it’s needed that when the caste-based census is finished correctly. We had been at all times in assist of the quota. However it’s excessive time that the restrict of fifty per cent be raised. The cap is depriving OBCs and EBCs of alternatives in proportion to their inhabitants,” he stated on the sidelines of a perform within the state capital.
He additionally reiterated the necessity for a recent estimate of the inhabitants of varied social teams and recalled having taken it up with Prime Minister Narendra Modi final 12 months.
On Monday, the apex court docket affirmed the validity of the central legislation offering 10% reservation advantages to EWS. Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, Bela M Trivedi and JB Pardiwala declared the legislation to be legitimate and never violating both the essential construction of the Structure or the equality code. Chief Justice of India Uday Umesh Lalit and justice S Ravindra Bhat, comprising the minority on the bench, held the EWS quota legislation to be discriminatory and exclusionary.
Considerably, the bulk verdict additionally held that the 50% ceiling on reservation is “not inviolable or rigid”, marking a paradigm shift from the thumb rule that has ruled reservations in India, stopping states from implementing quotas that take the proportion above the 50% mark, as laid down by a nine-judge bench within the 1992 Indra Sawhney judgment. The bulk view famous that the 50% ceiling utilized solely to the provisions of the Structure which existed at the moment and can’t prolong to the 2019 Constitutional modification that granted quotas to EWS.
The elimination of the 50% cap is an outdated demand by many OBC and Dalit teams that argue that quotas ought to proportional to the inhabitants strengths of communities.
On Tuesday, Kumar stated that caste evaluation was needed in order that every thing may very well be performed in response to the inhabitants.”We had been advised that states may maintain such headcounts. We now have undertaken that train. However this must be performed on the nationwide degree as nicely. There have to be a rethink on the difficulty of caste census,” stated Kumar.
The proposal to conduct a caste-based census in Bihar was cleared by the Bihar cupboard in June 2022 after an all-party delegation met Modi in August 2021.
The BJP reacted strongly to the CM’s demand. “Nitish Kumar introduced caste counting in Bihar however after 4 months this train appears to be a whole fiasco. If he’s actually involved to conduct the identical in an in depth and complete method, he ought to rely the sub-castes amongst each caste teams,” stated BJP chief Nikhil Anand.