BJP, Cong OBC push is for political mileage: Kavitha

Stating that the Telangana government had become a role model for the entire country in extending benefits to BC communities, Kavitha said said the BRS government was working for the cause of BCs since it came to power in 2014.

Nizamabad: Stating that the government functioning in Telangana was not just one of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), BRS MLC K Kavitha said this was a government of the Backward Class community.

Stating that the Telangana government had become a role model for the entire country in extending benefits to BC communities, Kavitha said said the BRS government was working for the cause of BCs since it came to power in 2014.

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Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao immediately after assuming power, had conducted the ‘Samagra Kutumba Survey’ to know the accurate population of various castes and communities to provide benefits to them through welfare schemes and programmes, she said.

Addressing a press conference along with Rajya Sabha member Vaddiraju Ravichandra, BRS MLAs A Jeevan Reddy, Bigala Ganesh Gupta and former Telangana TDP president and senior Mudiraj leader Kasani Gyaneshwar Mudiraj on Monday, Kavitha took a dig at the BJP and the Congress for their Other Backward Classes (OBC) push in the State, stating that the two parties were cheating the BCs since a long time and that all the love being shown by them in Telangana for the community was intended towards getting their votes in the assembly polls.

Describing both the parties as opportunists, Kavitha said though a Caste Census was conducted before 2010, the then Congress-led UPA government failed to make it public and even refused to provide quota for OBC women in the Women’s Reservation Bill claiming that they could not reveal the Census data. The BJP was also not making the report publicly though it had been in power for the last 10 years, she said.

“One should understand the conspiracy behind the two parties not making the Census report public,” she said, recalling that Chandrashekhar Rao had demanded the Manmohan Singh government to create a separate ministry for OBC communities welfare as early as 2004, but even after 20 years, neither the Congress nor the BJP took any steps in that direction.

The BJP government at the centre needs to tell the people of the country why it was not conducting the Caste Census and why the OBC Reservation Bill was not being introduced in the Parliament. It should also say why the National Commission for Backward Classes was scrapped, she said, also slamming the Congress, for not questioning the BJP government on the issue.

Rahul Gandhi was questioning the number of judges belonging to BC communities working in High Courts and the Supreme Court, but he was not talking about what his party’s government was doing when it was in power.

“Rahul Gandhi is conveniently putting the entire blame on the BJP on the issue and the BJP is blaming the Congress for the plight of the BCs. Both are playing blame games and washing their hands on the issue,” she said.