Date:31/03/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/03/31/stories/2007033124131700.htm

National

Students hold pro-reservation demonstration

Staff Reporter

Blame the UPA government for "weak representation"

NEW DELHI: Opposing the Supreme Court's stay on implementation of reservation for the Other Backward Classes, members of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union staged a demonstration at Jantar Mantar here on Friday.

The union condemned the United Progressive Alliance Government for its "weak representation and non-assertion in the court that makes one suspect its real intentions regarding implementation of 27 per cent reservation in elite institutions of higher learning.''

The stay on OBC reservation was "illogical," said general secretary Sandeep Singh. "If the data for OBCs is okay for reservation in jobs and the Supreme Court itself has endorsed it, how come it is not okay for reservation in education?"

Addressing the protesters, Mr. Singh said: "At the time of Mandal-I, anti-reservation forces opposed job reservation saying `ensure education first'. Today when reservation is to be extended to education, the hand of the apex court is being used to prevent it." Students from Jamia Millia Islamia and Delhi University also participated.