NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha members, cutting across party lines, on Monday rooted for a comprehensive Constitutional amendment to provide reservation benefits to deserving tribes and castes, which had been left out of the benefits due to technical or other reasons.
They made the demand while participating in a debate on a Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Second Amendment) Bill, 2011, seeking to include ‘Medara’ community in Karnataka in the ST list.
Moving the Bill, Tribal Affairs Minister V Kishore Chandra Deo said the amendment was aimed at providing ST status to ‘Medara’ community. This has been recommended by the Karnataka Government.
The name of the community was left out of the ST category inadvertently, Deo said. Presently, there are 50 communities in the ST list of Karnataka, he said.
Supporting the Bill, BJP’s Prahlad Joshi regretted that it took decades for the government to correct a technical lapse that had denied benefits to a section of tribal population in Karnataka.
He asked the government to expedite the procedure so that students belonging to that community should get the benefits from the next academic session itself.
RJD’s Raghuvansh Prasad Singh was among those who demanded that the government “should come out with a comprehensive Bill to provide quota benefits to deserving people belonging to neglected sections”.
Congress’ Jayaprakash Hegde, SP’s Shailendra Kumar, BSP’s Dhananjay Singh, JD(U)’s Bhudeo Choudhary, CPI’s P Lingam, BJP’s Nishikant Dubey and Trinamool’s Ratna De Nag spoke.