Not A Single Train Will Move: Kavitha Over BC Quota

Telangana Jagruthi President and BRS MLC K Kavitha today warned the Union government that not a single train would be allowed to move if the Centre failed to approve the bill granting 42% reservation to Backward Classes (BCs).

Speaking at a press conference organised by Telangana Jagruthi at the Constitution Club of India in New Delhi, Kavitha announced a Rail Roko protest on July 17 demanding Presidential assent for the BC reservation bill passed by the Telangana Assembly.

"We won't allow even a single train to move. All trains from Deccan to Delhi will be stopped. And this is just a trailer - if the bill is not approved, we'll launch an indefinite Rail Roko. The 2.5 crore BC population in Telangana will teach the BJP a lesson," she said.

As an interim measure to enable the reservations, she urged the Revanth Reddy-led Telangana government to issue a Government Order (GO) implementing the enhanced reservations, in accordance with Article 243(D) of the Constitution.

Kavitha accused both the BJP and Congress of betraying the BCs. She alleged that the Congress-led government had passed the BC reservation bill in the Assembly and sent it to the President merely to wash its hands off the issue.

She also targeted Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, claiming that his concern for the BCs emerged only after the Congress lost power in 2014. She said that even Congress-ruled States like Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh had yet to conduct caste censuses, and also asked Gandhi why he was not advising the Telangana Chief Minister to issue a GO implementing reservations.

She also urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who identified as an OBC, to ensure justice for the BCs by facilitating Presidential assent for the Telangana BC reservation bills. She proposed that the bill be included in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution, similar to Tamil Nadu's 69% reservation policy.

She argued that with the implementation of the EWS (Economically Weaker Sections) quota, the reservation limit had already crossed 50%, and 16 states had implemented quotas beyond this threshold. Therefore, claiming legal hurdles to implementing a 42% BC reservation in Telangana did not hold ground, she said.

She said that she would write to all political parties seeking support for implementing BC reservations.

She also spoke about the discrepancies in the caste census conducted by the Telangana Congress government. The 2014 comprehensive family survey conducted during the previous BRS regime under then Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao indicated that BCs made up 52% of the population, whereas the new survey claimed only 46%, she added.