Congress on Saturday slammed as «false propaganda» Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'snatching quotas' remarks and alleged that it was the BJP that was against reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the reality is that since 1950, reservation in education and employment has been possible when there have been Congress prime ministers and Congress governments at the helm. In a video statement, Ramesh said, «The prime minister is repeatedly indulging in the false propaganda that the Congress is against the reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs and wants to snatch it away. This is absolutely false.»
«The reality is that the provisions in the Constitution for reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were made because of B R Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and other Congress leaders. So, this was the contribution of the Congress,» Ramesh said.
He said in 1994 when P V Narasimha Rao was the prime minister, for the first time, 27 per cent reservation for OBCs was given in employment in central government and in 2006 when Manmohan Singh was the prime minister, 27 per cent reservation was made in higher education institutions for OBCs.