VIJAYAWADA: For the first time, upper castes are raising their voice against the present system of reservations for BCs, SCs and STs in education and employment.
A roundtable of representatives of seven upper castes organised here on Wednesday discussed the adverse impact of reservations on the upper castes youth and decided to agitate for a reservation system based on income and not on caste or religion.
The roundtable also wanted the Centre to constitute a commission headed by a judge of the Supreme Court to study the socio-economic status of the upper castes and the need to provide reservations to all sections of society on economic criteria.
The roundtable resolved that the report of the commission should be put up for public debate and then a legislation be enacted or if necessary the Constitution be amended, After the roundtable, a joint action committee named Agra Kula Ikya Vedika comprising representatives of the seven castes - Brahmins, Khatriyas, Vysya, Kammas, Reddys, Velamas and Kapus - was formed which decided to organise a dharna in front of the collector’s office here on September 15, which the leaders said would be the beginning of their agitation.
“We are not against the sections that are benefiting from the present system of reservations. What all we want is that the system should so structured that those who are at a disadvantage regardless of which caste they belong to, should get the benefit of reservations,” Agra Kula Ikya Vedika convenor and All India Brahmin Federation chief advisor Kota Sankara Sarma said.
Speaking to mediapersons after the round table, he said that the successive governments extended the reservation facility to the SCs and STs though BR Ambedkar wanted the system to be in force for 10 years so that they could overcome the social and economic backwardness they were in at that time.
“There has got to be an end to this. The reservations cannot go on for ever even as the talented youths from upper castes are suffering on account of lack of level playing field,” Sarma said, adding: “All SCs and STs are not poor and all upper castes are not affluent. This misnomer has to go.”