PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss on Monday met Chief Minister M.K. Stalin at the Secretariat to press for the implementation of 10.5% internal reservation for the Vanniyar community within the Most Backward Class quota.
Addressing journalists later, the PMK leader said he had insisted that a law providing 10.5% internal reservation for Vanniyars be introduced in the ongoing Assembly session, and contended that the caste census had nothing to do with the reservation for Vanniyars.
“The CM has said a decision will be taken after holding discussions,” he said. Recalling that a previous Vanniyar reservation law was quashed by the Supreme Court, he said that though the State government later formed a new Backward Class Commission and gave it more than nine months to submit its recommendations, the panel was yet to do so. “This cannot be accepted as it would take just 15 days (to collate data) because the data already exists,” he said.
According to him, party founder S. Ramadoss wrote six letters to the Chief Minister and spoke to him 10 times on this issue.
“We have our doubts as to whether this law will be enacted. That is why we wanted to meet the Chief Minister,” he said.
During the meeting, officials said they were collating the data.
“The Backward Class Commission should give a recommendation. Only after can a law be enacted. The MBC quota was created after sustained protests when Kalaignar (M. Karunanidhi) was the Chief Minister in 1989. The people who died protesting were from the Vanniyar community. The community lives across 20 districts, which have fallen behind in education over the last 30 years. This has been the case for a long time. Northern districts have more unemployment, one of the lowest per capita income and so on, which show social backwardness,” he said.
