Son of a Dalit IAS officer shouldn't get benefits of reservation, says senior BJP leader

NEW DELHI: Senior BJP leader CP Thakur on Sunday said that children of well-off Dalits should not be given benefits of reservation. "The son of a Dalit IAS officer should not be given the benefit of reservations in jobs and educational institutions," Thakur, a former Union Minister, said. 

He said that only two generation of Dalits should be given reservations in jobs and educational institutions, not beyond that.

This is not the first time that Thakur has opposed reservation. A similar statement from in 2014 had also drawn much criticism. He had also gone against party line 2017 when he questioned the decision by the NDA government in Bihar to introduce reservation in outsourced services, and said that the decision may lead to public resentment and a drop in investment in the state.

His remark comes at a time when the Central government recently told the Supreme Court that SC/ST employees from affluent background cannot be denied reservation in promotions in government jobs. The apex court had asked the Centre if those belonging to 'creamy layer' among SC/ST should be given quota benefits in promotion.

While advocating for the reservation in promotions, Attorney General KK Venugopal had said that the stigma and imprint of backwardness and caste remains with SC/ST community for centuries even if some of them have come up. "Even today SC/ST people are socially backward and not allowed to marry higher caste people and ride horses," the AG said.

The AG had also said that the concept of creamy layer is not applicable for SC/ST and is not open for judicial review. He said that the question of excluding a certain class of SC/ST has to be decided by the President and Parliament and this exercise.

Earlier on August 3, the apex court had asked the Centre as to why states have not come forward with any quantifiable data to decide the inadequacy of representation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in government services even 12 years after its verdict on the 'creamy layer'.

The five-judge Constitution bench is examining whether its 12-year-old verdict that had dealt with the issue of 'creamy layer' for reservations to SC and ST categories in government job promotions needs to be re-visited by a seven-judge bench. The apex court had on July 11 refused to pass any interim order against its 2006 verdict and said that a five-judge bench would first see whether it needs to be examined by a seven-judge bench or not.