TRS Fight For Reservations Is Rubbish: Congress

Leader Of Opposition in the Telangana Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir today said that the lack of sincerity and political will of the TRS government towards gaining reservations for Muslims & ST had been exposed once again, in Parliament.

Shabbir Ali, along with former union minister Balram Naik, addressed the press at Gandhi Bhavan today. He said that the TRS slogan of "One Country One Reservation" and its attempts to stall the proceedings of Parliament for reservations were rubbish, and intended mainly to cheat the people of Telangana.

He claimed that KCR and his government were acting on the directions of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, and the goal of their protests was mainly to avoid the no-confidence motion from coming up for discussion in Parliament by stalling Parliament along with the AIADMK.

Shabbir Ali said that the bill meant for increasing reservations for Muslims from 4% to 12% and for STs from 6% to 10% had already been passed in the Telangana Assembly and Council in April 2017. However, instead of just implementing the reservations, KCR sent the Bill to the central government for approval, which was essentially delaying tactics. He said that if the TRS was sincere, it should start implementing the reservations approved in the state legislature and provide reservations in employment and education from 2018-19.

If the TRS was sincere about implementing reservations, it would also abandon the goal of "One Country, One Reservation" as that was practically impossible given that every state would need to implement different reservations for different communities based on local demands, Shabbir Ali added.

Balram Naik said that the TRS was cheating the Muslims and STs knowingly. This was clear since when the ST population was only 9.08% in the state, the government had recommended 10% reservations for them, and when the BC Commission had recommended only 10% reservation for Muslims, the TRS government had announced 12%, since the government knew that these were anyway not going to be implemented.

He demanded that the TRS government implement the reservations approved in the state legislature in TSPSC, ITDA and other government agencies first, and then demand approval by the GoI.