Stating that reservation will not guarantee employment as jobs are shrinking, Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Saturday, 5 August, said that there is a "school of thought" which wants policy-makers to consider the poorest of poor in every community.
Gadkari was responding to reporters' questions on the ongoing agitation by the Marathas for reservation and similar demands by other communities in Maharashtra:
Let us assume the reservation is given. But there are no jobs. Because in banks, the jobs have shrunk because of IT. The government recruitment is frozen. Where are the jobs? The problem with the quota is that backwardness is becoming a political interest. Everyone says I am backward. In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, Brahmins are strong. They dominate politics. (And) They say they are backward.
"So one school of thought is that a poor person is a poor person; he has no caste, creed or language. Whatever may be the religion – Muslim, Hindu or Maratha (a caste) – in all communities, there is one section which has no clothes to wear, no food to eat. One school of thought also is (that) we must also consider the poorest of the poor section in every community," he said.
However, in a later tweet, Gadkari clarified that he did not imply a change in reservation criteria from caste to economic condition.
Maintaining that Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was trying to resolve the Maratha quota demand by holding talks, Gadkari urged people to maintain peace.
"The responsible political parties must not add fuel to the fire," he added.
Development, industrialisation and good prices for rural produce would ease the economic distress that the Maratha community is suffering from, he said.
(With inputs from PTI.)
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