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Rajasekhara Reddy to lead all-party team to Delhi

Special Correspondent

Leaders to meet PM, Sonia on SC classification on May 19

HYDERABAD: Bowing down to the demand of the Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS), Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy has agreed to lead an all-party delegation to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and AICC president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi on May 19.

The delegation will urge the Central leaders to introduce in the current session of Parliament a Bill to amend the Constitution providing for classification of Scheduled Castes into A, B, C & D groups for the purpose of reservation in education and employment. Dr. Reddy, who left for Srinagar on Monday, will join the team in New Delhi that day.

This decision was taken at an all-party meeting convened by the Government on Monday in the wake of the agitation launched by the MRPS. The outfit later announced its decision to call off the stir.

Earlier in the day, MRPS president Manda Krishna met the Chief Minister at his residence before the latter left for the airport. Municipal Administration Minister K. Ranga Rao, who chaired the meeting, told reporters later that the delegation would press the Centre for introducing the Bill in Parliament on May 23. But, if the Prime Minister insisted on following the set procedure, he would be requested to hasten the process to ensure that the poorer sections among SCs did not suffer in the coming academic year. He said the grievance of this section had been acknowledged as `genuine' by all political parties.

Interestingly, the Telugu Desam Party, during whose tenure the SCs were classified into four groups, did not send its representative to the meeting as also the CPI (M) which is holding its State plenum in Vijayawada. G. Kishen Reddy (BJP) recalled that his party leader L. K. Advani had already written a letter to the Prime Minister supporting SC classification.

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