Bhubaneswar, May 14: The Scheduled Caste and Schedule Tribe MLAs of Congress and the BJP continued their dharna at the Assembly today despite it being a holiday.
They have been demanding 38 per cent reservation for the SC and ST communities in medical and engineering colleges as against the present quota of 20 per cent.
Though the Assembly proceedings have been adjourned till Monday morning because of two successive government holidays (second Saturday and Sunday), the agitating MLAs continue their protest, which entered its fifth day today.
"The Naveen Patnaik government has proved itself to be 'anti-SC and ST'. It is in no mood to listen to our demands. We will continue our dharna inside the House till our demands are met. Even we will go to the people over the issue from Monday," senior Congress MLA Bhujabal Majhi told The Telegraph today.
The SC and ST legislators have been staging dharna inside the House after being forcibly lifted from in front of the chief minister Naveen Patnaik's chamber, where they had squatted pressing for their demands.
Yesterday, they prostrated before chief minister Naveen Patnaik and requested him to accept their demands. However, Naveen had left the House without paying any heed to their pleas.
Congress SC cell chairman Krushna Chandra Sagaria condemned the "insensitive attitude" of the BJD government towards the demands of SC and ST MLAs. "It is quite presumable as to how much importance the BJD government attaches to the problems of the SC, ST people in general, when the government does not care to the agitation by the legislators right inside the Assembly," said Sagaria.
While the Congress's SC cell has planned to take to streets from Monday, their BJP counterpart is yet to chalk out their future plan of action. BJP MLA Rabi Narayan Naik said: "We will continue our agitation till we find a logical conclusion. The SC, ST MLAs and various tribal organisations will stage demonstration before all the district collectorates on Monday in support of their demand."
If the enhanced reservation quota is implemented under the Odisha Reservation of Vacancies Act, the reservation for the SC candidates in these institutions will increase to 16.25 per cent and 22.5 per cent for the ST students.
The other demands of the SC and ST MLAs are filling up of all vacant posts reserved for the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes communities, inclusion of all synonymous communities in the list of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe, reservation for the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes candidates in private sector industries and organisations and loan waiver for them.
