Paswan favours ten per cent reservation for upper caste poor

Patna, Jun 22 (UNI) Demanding ten per cent reservation for poor among upper caste, Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) chief and Union Fertiliser Minister Ramvilas Paswan today strongly advocated for 33 per cent reservation for women in Lok Sabha.

Talking to newspersons, Mr Paswan demanded for increasing the strength of Lok Sabha by 181 seats and suggested all these seats be reserved for women.

Referring to the condition of women in the world, Mr Paswan said out of 70 presidents in the post-Independence era of the United States of America(USA), not even a single woman had got the opportunity to occupy the highest office there so far.

Regarding limitations in the reservation, he said the Apex court had fixed the limit up to 50 per cent, while the Constitution talked about special favour in reservation to those, who lagged behind others in the mainstream of development.

Keeping this spirit in mind, the provision of 79 per cent reservation had been made in Tamil Nadu and upper caste poors could also be provided with ten per cent reservation accordingly, he pointed out.

Favouring reservation for Dalit Muslims and Christians,Mr Paswan said the Sachchar committee in its report had shown the entire Muslim community as ''backward'' and hence they should be included under the purview of reservation.

To a query, Mr Paswan said he had no grievances with the JD(U) and added that he could think of initiating dialogue with the party, in case it snapped its ties with the BJP.

He, however, reiterated that his party had decided to go to the polls all alone and categorically declared that the LJP would not enter into any alliance with the BJP either before or after the Lok Sabha elections.

To another question, he said development was invisible in the Nitish Kumar government, which had failed in utilising the development fund, sanctioned by the Centre for the needy.

He also lambasted the Nitish Kumar government for the latter's non-cooperation and alleged that the government till date had failed to provide land for establishment of steel plant in Mahnar of Vaishali and in Gaya district.

He further said the Centre had initiated health insurance scheme for providing medicine to the poor and suggested the Nitish Kumar government to launch similar scheme in the state.

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