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Mayawati seeks quota in private sector

— Photo: Vivek Bendre

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati being greeted by supporters at a rally at Shivaji Park in Mumbai on Sunday.

MUMBAI: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Sunday demanded concrete steps from the Centre to ensure reservation of jobs for Dalits in the private sector. The BSP was working very hard on a national basis to ensure reservation in the private sector but as yet the Centre has taken no concrete step, she said.

A mammoth crowd waited at Shivaji Park for several hours and gave Ms. Mayawati a standing ovation as she arrived. A sea of blue flags fluttered in the winter breeze and the BSP mascot, the elephant, was everywhere.

Addressing the people from a stage designed on the lines of the Sanchi Stupa, she said no party was willing to give Dalits reservation in the private sector and there is a mentality against reservation. She also expressed the fear that the policy would come to a gradual end.

Government organisations were being privatised in a big way and this also meant denial of jobs for Dalits. After she had come to power in Uttar Pradesh this time she had met the Prime Minister and also written to him on this issue. The Centre has to take a tough stand on this as the private sector was ‘dithering.’ In Uttar Pradesh, the government had already decided to reserve jobs in the private sector, she said.

The other issue she raised was reservation in jobs for the economically backward among the upper castes and religious minorities. “We want to give reservations separately for these sections,” she said. However, she promised that if her government was elected to power at the Centre, these quotas would be given automatically.

Speaking for over an hour, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister reiterated that the BSP design of “Sarva Samaj Bhaichara Banao” (Bringing all communities together) was the only thing which would work.

She said her Uttar Pradesh formula of aligning the upper castes with the Dalits, religious minorities and the other backward classes was the formula of the future.

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