Congress Takes Mandal Route At Hyderabad – Can It Win The Caste Arithmetic

New Delhi, Sanjeev Trivedi: Finally, investing all its might in the newly formed INDIA bloc, *the CWC reiterated the Congress party’s resolve to make the INDIA initiative an ideological and electoral success so that our country is freed from divisive and polarising politics* ‘.

The deliberations of Sunday will talk about the resolution that are to be adopted with regard to the election going states.

• In what many may call the Mandalisation of the Congress party, the CWC resolutions passed Saturday clearly reflected the priorities of the INDIA bloc parties having an impact on the Congress policy makers. In what can be called a first, the Congress passed a resolution calling for raising the limit of reservation for the SC/ST and the OBC. It also asked for passing the women reservation bill that has been pending in the Parliament for years.

• Taking cue from the Mandal parties, which form the latest core of the INDIA bloc, Congress in its Hyderabad CWC resolution demanded caste reservation. Though the partymen have been voicing the demand but wordings in the resolution put a stamp of approval by the highest decision making body of the party. The resolution read ‘The CWC underlines the stubborn refusal of the Modi government to conduct a Caste Census’.

• Asking for the breach of the Indira Sahni judgement that fixed reservation to not more than 50 percent – the CWC resolution read, CWC calls for increasing the existing upper limit of reservations for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and OBCs’.

• It also demanded the passage of the long pending Women’s Reservation Bill during the special session of the Parliament.