NEW DELHE: The Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi said today that reservations for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in government jobs would be extended for another 10 years from 1990.
Inaugurating an all India conference of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes employees here, Gandhi said no other political party had championed the cause of. the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes as vigorously as the Congress had done since the freedom movement.
He said in 1989 when the proposal for an extension of reservations for the backward classes was in doldrums due to the Janata Party’s apathy towards these com= munities it was Indira Gandhi who took the bold step to extend the reservation period for 10 years.
During his more than 40 minute speech, Gandhi charged the Opposition parties with hobnobbing, with elements “inimical to the country’s unity and integrity.”
Gandhi reminded his audience that they Janata Party Leaders were the same persons who had now put on the “cloak of the Janata Dal.” They drew their strength and sustenance by putting, upper castes against the weaker sections.
‘Accusing the Opposition parties of fanning communalism and encouraging Casteism and fissiparous tendencies, Gandhi asked: “Who are the people who supported the assassins of Gandhi, and again who are the people who opposed: test firing of Agni missile?
Those were the people who put up resistance when the Government took measures to ameliorate the lot of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
A monitoring cell had been set up in the Cabinet Secretariat to exclusively deal with the problems concerning the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, he added.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 11, 1989
