Finding itself in a "complex" situation, the Congress is doing a fine balancing act in trying to resolve the Rajya Sabha deadlock over the bill on reservations for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) in job promotions and says it hopes for a positive result. The bill is possibly the next acid test for the government with the Samajwadi Party (SP) opposed to it and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for it. Both the SP and the BSP, which "helped" the government win the FDI in retail vote in parliament last week, have opposite stands on the bill.
Here is a 5-point guide to what it proposes to do:
The Constitution (One hundred and seventeenth) Amendment Bill, introduced in Rajya Sabha September 4, seeks to amend at least four articles of the constitution to enable the government to provide quotas in promotions for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes who constitute roughly 25 percent of the country's 1.2 billion population.
It seeks to remove the term 'inadequate representation' mentioned in Article 16(4A) to justify quotas in promotions and appointments.
It also delinks the term 'efficiency of administration' from the claims of SC and ST for jobs and promotions, mentioned in Article 335.
Article 335 of the Constitution says that the claims of the SC and ST have to be balanced with maintaining efficiency in administration. The bill states the amendment will override the provision of Article 355.
The Bill provides that all the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes notified in the constitution shall be deemed to be backward.
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