Lalu lashes out at Centre on quota issue

Patna: Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Tuesday blamed the Central government for scrapping the 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Class (OBC) professors and associate professors in Central universities and said he would launch a country-wide protest to expose the BJP-led government on the issue. The BJP rebutted Lalu’s charge and said the decision was just the reiteration of the previous UPA government’s reservation policy. Showing sheaf of UGC papers dated June 3, the RJD president told journalists that he would launch a countrywide protest to expose the BJP-led Central government’s bid to end reservation in the promotion of the OBC professors and associate professors in Central universities which was being done at the behest of the RSS. “The BJP is the child of Brahminical RSS but we won’t allow the anti-OBC, anti-Dalit BJP to take away the rights of the deprived. Let them not live in any false impression,” Mr. Prasad had tweeted earlier in the day. Mr. Prasad claimed that last week the University Grants Commission had informed the Central universities that their current practice of exempting senior faculty posts from the OBC quota would continue while the Scheduled Castes (15 per cent) and Scheduled Tribes (7.5 per cent) quotas would apply to all teaching posts at these universities and the 27 per cent Other Backward Class (OBC) quota would cover the recruitment of assistant professors but not associate professors and professors. The RJD chief also blamed HRD Minister Smriti Irani for the cancellation of OBC quota for the post of associate professors and professors in Central universities. “India’s OBC community that accounts for 60% of the population will not tolerate this injustice by the RSS and the BJP. Where is the chest-thumping OBC PM?” asked Mr. Prasad. Senior Bihar BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said Mr. Prasad’s charges were false, baseless and confusing as the HRD Ministry’s letter was just a reiteration of the previous UPA government’s reservation policy. However, on Tuesday evening, the UGC issued a circular addressing the Registrars of all Central universities, which said, “there has been no change in the reservation policy for SC/ST/OBC in faculty positions in Central universities as circulated vide this office letter No. 1-4/1994 (SCT) dated 24/1/2007 and Guidelines for Strict Implementation of Reservation Policy of the Government in Universities, Deemed to be Universities, Colleges and other Grant-In-Aid Institutions and Centres, 2006.”

Source: The Hindu