Oppn questions govt on not extending quota in legislatures

Supporting the extension of reservation for SCs and STs in legislatures by another 10 years, various Opposition members in Lok Sabha on Tuesday questioned the government on not extending similar benefit to the Anglo-Indian community.

The reservation given to Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and the Anglo-Indian community for the past 70 years is to end on January 25, 2020.

The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty Sixth Amendment) Bill, 2019, seeks to extend the reservation for SCs and STs till January 25, 2030.

"At the moment we have not come up with the matter related to extension of reservation for the Anglo-Indian community," Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said during the debate.

Participating in the discussion on the Bill, Saugata Roy (TMC) said the minister put the number of Anglo-Indian at 296 quoting the Registrar General report "which is completely misleading".

"I totally object to the government's effort to obliterate the representation of one community and for this the minister has taken recourse to a false report of Registrar General of India," he said.

"What Dr B R Ambedkar gave Ravi Shankar Prasad wants to take away," he said, taking a swipe at the Law Minister.

K Kanimozhi (DMK) said although the number of Anglo- Indians is shrinking, it cannot be as low as 296 as Tamil Nadu itself will have few thousand people from the community.

She wondered how could the Centre unilaterally remove this as 13 states have this provision.

This government is hurting the federal structure, she added.

She also demanded that the government consider reservation for women "as they are also Dalits".

The issue of Anglo-Indians was also raised by B Mehtab (BJD).

Where is the time for the government to introduced another Bill for extending extending reservation for the community as the session will end of Friday, he wondered.

"I don't believe that it is going to happen," he added.

Girish Chandra (BSP) demanded that the reservation for SC/ST should be extended to private sector.

Nama Nageswar Rao (TRS) said the central government should expeditiously clear the proposal of states to extend reservation for OBC and other communities.

Supriya Sule (NCP) demanded that the government support minorities within the country also by extending reservation for Anglo-Indian communities.

NDA ally Apna Dal member Anupriya Patel also sought continued representation of Anglo-Indian community in legislatures.

Hibi Eden (Cong) claimed that Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was "misleading" the House that the country was left with 296 Anglo Indians and demanded that the reservation for them should continue.

"In my constituency (Ernakulam) there are 20,000 people of this community (Anglo Indian)," he said, adding that the entire community contributed a lot to the progress of the country.

He said the House has 543 elected members and questioned if there was any elected member from the Anglo Indian community.

In Rajya Sabha, he said, there was just one member-- Derek O'Brien-- from the community.

He also said that Anglo Indians were not adequately represented in the House of People, adding that around 3,47,000 people from this community were spread across the country.

He also urged the government to appoint a committee to study the economic and social situation of this community which was facing cultural erosion.