Casting doubt on Congress’s pitch for caste census, the ex-Uttar Pradesh CM asked if the party would be able to impart legitimate rights to communities under quota after the census.
“BSP has been putting pressure for caste census for years. Earlier when Congress was at the center and even now on the BJP. The party has been in the favour of it for years and still is,” Mayawati wrote on X.
Mayawati further said: “But after the caste census, will the Congress be able to ensure the reasonable rights of SC, ST and OBC? Those who are still silent on the issue of classification and creamy layer in SC/ST reservation should answer.”
On August 1, the Supreme Court ruling on creamy layer came from the sole Dalit judge on the bench, Justice BR Gavai, with others — CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices Vikram Nath, Pankaj Mithal, Manoj Misra and S C Sharma, concurring.
However, the idea that the concept of “creamy layer”, so far limited to OBCs, needed to be extended to Dalits as well ran afoul of the dominant opinion.
Almost a week after the top Court allowed the states to have sub-groups within 15 per cent scheduled caste quota, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge questioned the judgement saying that how could one “apply a creamy layer when there is so much backlog?”
He further said that the central government should have nullified the apex court’s ruling.
The ruling BJP also has rejected the recent Supreme Court ruling asking for exclusion of ‘creamy layer’ among Dalits from the purview of quotas, saying that doing so would be unconstitutional.
In her post on X, Mayawati also recalled the infamous guesthouse incident that occurred in 1995 after BSP withdrew support from SP patriarch Mulayam Singh-led UP governemnt.
She said people often wonder why Congress never speaks about the incident.
“SP had carried out a deadly attack on me on 2 June 1995 after BSP withdrew its support, then why does Congress never speak on this? Whereas the Congress government which was in the centre during that time also did not fulfill its responsibility,” she said.
Earlier, the BSP chief went hammer and tongs against SP and Congress, both constituents of the opposition INDIA bloc, calling out the “double standards”.
Mayawati stated that Ambedkar’s followers will never forgive Congress for not awarding the main architect of Constitution with the highest civilian honour.