BRS MLC Kavitha demands immediate roll back of GO removing roster points for women reservation

Telangana government decided to implement 33 per cent horizontal reservations for women, without any roster points in recruitment for the categories of candidates, said Kavitha

Hyderabad: BRS MLC K Kavitha demanded for immediate roll back of the State government’s orders removing roster points in implementation of 33 percent horizontal reservation for women in the matter of direct recruitment to various posts. She found fault with the government orders stating that it deprives women of government job opportunities beyond the 33 per cent reservation quota.

Speaking to mediapersons here on Monday, Kavitha said the Telangana government decided to implement 33 per cent horizontal reservations for women, without any roster points in recruitment for the categories of candidates. She pointed out that after many years of struggle, women in India secured 33.3 per cent horizontal reservations in job opportunities in 1996. However, the Telangana government recently issued a GO honouring the Supreme Court’s latest ruling, to implement horizontal reservations without roster points.

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The BRS MLC further said that the previous BRS government filed a writ petition against the Supreme Court ruling, but the Revanth Reddy government withdrew the case, claiming that this step would benefit women. “The Congress government is trying to mislead the women of Telangana. This GO will hurt the interests of women and their job opportunities in the State. We demand the State government to roll back the order and fight this issue legally,” she added.

Kavitha also wrote to former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and AICC chief Mallikarjun Kharge on the issue, demanding the Congress leadership to follow a uniform policy on this issue across the nation. She stated that while the Congress government in Karnataka has decided to go against the top court’s order, in Telangana they are following it.

The State government recently issued directives for implementing 33 per cent reservation for women in government, government undertakings, government-aided institutions and local bodies without earmarking any roster points for them. Instead of the vertical reservation rule which enables reserved category candidates to compete for non-reserved posts based on merit without affecting their quota, the government opted for the horizontal rule which restricts women from competing for posts beyond the reserved quota in direct recruitment.