Demand for BC bill in current Parliament session

Vidyanagar: BC Welfare Association demanded that the Prime Minister and opposition parties take measures to introduce BC bill in the current Parliament session and bring about political reforms to provide 50 per cent reservations to BCs in legislative bodies. This was resolved at the association's core committee meeting held here at BC Bhavan on Tuesday.

Speaking at the meeting, R Krishnaiah said that 14 political parties have come forward to support the BC bill if it was introduced in the current session of the Parliament. The parties which gave support include Congress, YSR Congress, DMK, AIADMK, PMK, BSP, SP, RJD Janatadal, TRS, NCP and Shiv Sena, he said.

He said that YSRC members already proposed the private bill in the previous session and if BJP takes initiative to support the bill, then it could be easily passed without much ado. While EBC reservation bill, which was intended to benefit forward castes, was introduced in a day, previous governments were not ready to pass the bill despite their struggle for the last 30 years, he lamented.

Stressing the need for introducing the BC bill, he said that while BC constitute 56 per cent of the total population, only 14 per cent of the legislative members are from BC communities. Of 29 states, 16 states do not have a single MP, he informed.

Lack of adequate representation from the majority section of population is anti-democratic and democratic spirit of the nation needs to be preserved, he added. BC leaders Neela Venkatesh, Jillapalli Anji, Pagilla Satish, Chandrashekhar Goud, G Krishna Yadav and others attended the meeting.