BSP extends support to Bharat Bandh against top court order on sub-classification of SCs

BSP president Mayawati. File Pic

The Bahujan Samaj Party on Wednesday extended support to the day-long Bharat Bandh called by some Dalit and Adivasi groups to protest against the Supreme Court's recent verdict on the sub-classification of Scheduled Castes (SCs).

The party also accused the BJP and the Congress of colluding to end reservation. It said these parties and others should understand the necessity of reservation and not play with it.

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"BSP supports the Bharat Bandh because there is anger and resentment against the Supreme Court's August 1 decision regarding the sub-classification of SC/ST and the creamy layer among them due to the conspiracy against reservation by parties like BJP and Congress and their collusion to make it ineffective and eventually end it," BSP president Mayawati said in a post in Hindi on X.

"In this regard, the people of these classes will submit a memorandum to the government today as part of the Bharat Bandh and strongly demand that the changes made in reservation be abolished through a constitutional amendment...," she said.

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister further said that the constitutional right of reservation given to the OBC community along with SCs and STs is the result of the continuous struggle of B R Ambedkar.

"BJP, Congress and other parties should understand its necessity and sensitivity and not play with it," she said.

Twenty-one organisations across the country have called for the Bharat Bandh against the Supreme Court order, which they have said will harm the basic principles of reservation.

In a landmark verdict on August 1, the Supreme Court held that states are constitutionally empowered to make sub-classifications within the SCs, which form a socially heterogeneous class, for granting reservation for the uplift of castes that are socially and educationally more backward among them.

The apex court, however, made it clear that states have to make sub-classification on the basis of "quantifiable and demonstrable data" of backwardness and representation in government jobs and not on "whims" and as a matter of "political expediency".

Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav also backed the day-long Bharat Bandh called by some groups over community-based reservation, noting that "public movements" put a check on "unbridled government".