Bhopal: Former Union minister and prominent BJP tribal leader Faggan Singh Kulaste on Wednesday accused the opposition of politicising the Supreme Court’s verdict on sub-categorisation within the Scheduled Castes and said the Centre has already made its stand clear on it. “The judges have given their opinion. I personally met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on this issue along with 60-70 MPs. The Prime Minister told us that the creamy layer provision (sub-categorisation) among SCs and STs will not be implemented,” said Kulaste, MP from Mandla (ST) Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh.
He told reporters here that the Union Cabinet has also decided that the apex court’s opinion will not be implemented. “Despite so much clarity and decision of the government, people have called for a Bharat Bandh… they are doing politics. Congress did politics in the name of SC and ST and Mayawati (BSP chief) is also doing the same,” Kulaste said. He said former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had also defended reservation. “Judges may have their opinion but the government’s stand on the issue is clear that it will not be implemented,” he said. Twenty-one organisations across the country have called for a Bharat Bandh on Wednesday against the Supreme Court’s August 1 verdict on reservation.
The organisations have opposed the decision, saying it will harm the basic principles of reservation. The Supreme Court had on August 1 said that states have the constitutional right to make sub-classification within the Scheduled Castes (SC), a socially heterogeneous class, to provide reservation for the upliftment of castes that are socially and educationally more backward. However, the apex court made it clear that states will have to make sub-classification on the basis of “quantifiable and demonstrable data” of backwardness and representation in government jobs, and not on the basis of “whim” and “political gain”.
