The Hindu : Mayawati moots reservation in Cabinet

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 04, 2003

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Mayawati moots reservation in Cabinet

By Our Special Correspondent

Mayawati at the press conference in New Delhi on Saturday. — Photo: V.V. Krishnan

NEW DELHI MAY 3. The Bahujan Samaj Party today advocated reservation in the Council of Ministers in order to ensure adequate representation for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.

While supporting the move to limit the size of Ministries both at the Centre and the States, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and BSP vice-president, Mayawati, said that she had instructed her party leader in the Lok Sabha to seek a clause providing reservation for the SCs and the STs, "keeping in mind their population".

Addressing the media here on completion of one-year of her coalition Government, Ms. Mayawati said the BSP would also support the Centre's move to introduce legislation to tackle the problem of defection. "We will vote in favour of both the Bills and help in their passage."

To a question on the BSP's viewpoint with regard to the move to ban religious conversions, Ms. Mayawati said there was no objection to the move to check forcible conversions. Otherwise, the Constitution permitted the freedom to practise any religion. Incidentally, Ms. Mayawati, had warned at the Lucknow rally on April 14, that unless Hindu religious leaders eliminated discriminatory practices, the `Bahujan' samaj led by her would embrace Buddhism.

The BSP would also support Central legislation to ban cow-slaughter and such a law was already in place in Uttar Pradesh. Asked about her Government's stand on the VHP's `trishul' (trident) distribution programme, Ms. Mayawati said she agreed with the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani's remarks that it marred the organisation's image. However, she said the VHP had already carried on some `minor' programme in the State. "I would not commit the mistake of carrying out (their) arrest like Rajasthan did and make him (VHP leader Praveen Togadia) a hero," she said.

In the same breath, she warned that if the Samajwadi Party attempted to distribute swords, as the party leaders did at a rally in Delhi, they would be proceeded against under the Arms Act.

The BSP would go it alone in the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Rajasthan later this year. Talks on seat-sharing arrangement with the BJP for U.P. ahead of the next general elections would take place only after the Assembly polls.

The BSP would field a candidate against the Maharashtra Chief Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde.

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