Prakash Ambedkar slams BJP over SC/ST promotion quota for Central staff issue

Mumbai, Sep 12 (IANS) Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) President Prakash Ambedkar. on Thursday, slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government for not implementing reservations in promotions for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes employees in the Central government services “as a matter of serious concern and setback to social justice”.

Ambedkar said that he had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over this issue on July 18, referring to the constitutional provisions as per Article 16(4A) and 16 (4).

“But, till date neither have I received any reply nor has the government moved forward in the direction of implementing this reservation (in promotions). It has not been implemented effectively in both the government sector and education, but some people are already talking about abolishing reservations,” said Ambedkar, without taking any names.

Targeting the government on the issue of Manipur, Ambedkar alleged that the BJP-RSS are importing their ‘ethnic cleansing model’ from Gujarat to the northeast Indian state, while the Congress has expressed only ‘fake sympathy’ for the people there.

“The BJP-RSS imported their ethnic cleansing model from Gujarat to Manipur. The Christian Kukis were systematically massacred and their tribe communalised in the mainstream media handled by the BJP-RSS,” contended Ambedkar.

On the other hand, he charged the Congress with lending fake sympathy to the people of Manipur in the (Lok Sabha) elections for votes without taking a political stand for the Christian Kukis massacred there, and post-elections, it adopted the BJP’s line.

“The Christian Kukis have been cheated and abandoned by both the BJP and Congress. This is not the first time that India’s tribals have been fooled, betrayed and abandoned by them…Both parties are brothers-in-arms when it comes to looting, neglecting and repressing the Adivasis (tribals),” said Ambedkar.

He asked both the BJP-Congress to spell out their intervention policy to end the ethnic violence rocking Manipur.

Ambedkar’s comments came days after he launched a platform to unite all the tribal groups in the state and fight the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections jointly.