New Delhi: Members in the Lok Sabha on Monday transcended political barriers to pitch for a comprehensive Constitutional amendment to provide reservation benefits to deserving tribes and castes which had been left out because of technical or other reasons.
They made the demand while participating in a debate on a Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Second Amendment) Bill, 2011 seeking to include `Medara` community in Karnataka in the list of Scheduled Tribes. Moving the Bill, Tribal Affairs Minister V Kishore Chandra Deo said amendment aimed at providing scheduled tribe status to `Medara` community, as recommended by Karnataka government. He said the name of the community was left out inadvertently.
At present, there are 50 communities in the list of Scheduled Tribes in Karnataka, he said. Supporting the bill, Prahlad Joshi (BJP) regretted that it took decades for the government to correct a technical lapse that had denied benefits to a section of tribal population in Karnataka.
He wanted the government to expedite the procedure so that students belonging to that community can benefit from the next academic session.
Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (RJD) demanded that government should come out with a comprehensive bill to provide quota benefits to deserving people belonging to neglected sections.
Jayaprakash Hegde (Cong), Shailendra Kumar (SP), Dhananjay Singh (BSP), P Lingam (CPI), Nishikant Dubey (BJP), Rangaswamy Dhruvanarayana (Cong), Nama Nageswara Rao (TDP), Ramkishun (SP) and Sanjeev Naik (NCP) also spoke.
PTI