RSS can’t force govt to rethink on quotas: Paswan

NEWDELHI: The views of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) have no bearing on the Narendra Modi government’s policy on reservation for the backward castes and classes, Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Thursday.

“Despite all the rumours and talk about the RSS, it is unthinkable for the government to move away from reservation…the government is not budging,” the food minister and chief of the Lok Janshakti Party told HT in an interview, a day after the Union cabinet decided on setting up a commission for sub-categorisation of other backward classes for what it called a “more equitable distribution” of quota benefits.

It also raised the income ceiling from ₹6 lakh per annum to ₹8 lakh for the creamy layer to avail quota benefits. The RSS is the ideological parent of the ruling BJP and has repeatedly called for ending reservation. In September 2015, a month before the Bihar assembly elections and at a time the Patidars in Gujarat were agitating for reservation, Sangh chief Mo ha nB hagwa thad stirred a controversy by calling for a review of the government’s reservation policy.

Asked about Bhagwant’s views on reservation, Paswan said, “The government is not concerned with who says what outside. There will be no rethink. The Prime Minister has repeatedly said that he is committed to continuing reservation.”

In January, the RSS’s chief spokesperson Manmohan Vaidya quoted BR Ambedkar to underline the need for ending reservation. “Dr Ambedkar has said, in any nation, it’s not good to have reservation forever,” Vaidya had said and stirred another controversy.