Union petroleum minister S.Jaipal Reddy will be honoured at a function at Gandhi Bhavan here on August 11 for his service to the backward classes.
“Jaipal Reddy, who hails from Andhra Pradesh, has done immense help to the BCs by providing 27 per cent reservation in allotment of petrol pumps and LPG outlets to them,” OBC MPs Forum convener V.Hanumantha Rao said in Delhi on Sunday.
Speaking to mediapersons, he said that whether it was Indira Gandhi in the past or the UPA now, it was always the Congress which cared for the BCs. “TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu has been promising that he would field 100 BCs in the next Assembly elections. It is all bunkum. It is the Congress which had provided constitutional safeguards for BCs to improve their living standards,” Rao said.
Had Indira Gandhi not introduced land reforms, nationalised banks and ushered in the 20-point economic programme, the BCs would not have reached the stage they did now. Similarly, it was during the Congress tenure that BCs could get 33 per cent reservation in civic and local bodies thanks to the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments (Panchayat raj and Nagarpalika), he said.
The MP recalled how he, as convener of the OBC MPs Forum, had fought for quota for OBCs in the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).