Kerala’s LDF plans policy amendment to bring poor from all communities under EWS quota ambit

The implementation of the plan, however, would not be smooth.

Incidentally, Kerala is the first Indian state to offer reservation for the poor among forward communities soon after the Constitution was amended in 2019.

The CPI(M), the largest constituent in the LDF, found itself on a sticky wicket after its general secretary, Sitaram Yechury, criticised the Supreme Court verdict. He felt the amendment was skewed and favoured the affluent section.

The DMK government’s adamant stand against reservation for EWS in neighbouring Tamil Nadu is also of concern. The CPI(M) party has been accused of ignoring the affirmative action aspect of the quota system in its bid to appease the forward communities.

No going back, says CPI(M)

Talking to South First on the condition of anonymity, a CPI(M) State Secretariat member said that there would be no going back on the party’s declared stand that economic reservation must be extended to the poorest of the poor.

However, he said the party wants to end the prevailing situation where affluent classes take away the reservation benefits by denying them to deserving members of the backward communities. `

“We will expand the scope of economic reservation beyond the forward communities and ensure that it reaches the poorest of the poor among the backward communities as well,” he said.

A significant number of the population in Kerala comprises scheduled castes and OBCs. The CPI(M) now finds, for political reasons, it to be suicidal to limit the quota to the poor among the forward communities.

Even the judges in the Supreme Court bench had observed that limiting reservation benefits to the poor among the forward castes would be discriminatory.

The next Politburo meeting of CPI(M) will discuss the issue to evolve a pan-India approach. The state leadership, however, will have to find a damage-control mechanism before the Politburo meet. The state leadership now is of the view that poverty among the forward communities should not be addressed separately.

The LDF government had justified its implementation of reservation for forward communities, saying that it would not impact the existing 50 percent reservation for the weaker and SC/ST sections. Instead, the LDF said the 10 percent was hived off the 50 percent general quota.

The LDF is also watching the moves of the Opposition Congress-led UDF. The Congress’s national leaders P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh have termed the selective addressing of the poor among the forward communities “discriminatory”.

Support for DMK

The Congress and the Left parties have accepted the DMK’s stand in Tamil Nadu. When contacted, Kerala’s Opposition leader VD Satheesan said the EWS reservation must not undermine the state-guaranteed affirmative action aimed at eliminating the historical backwardness of SCs, STs, socially and educationally backward classes and other backward classes.

The verdict of SC upholding EWS Quota is a setback for our century-long crusade for social justice.

All the likeminded parties shall come together as one to fight the social injustice called EWS quota and carry the struggle forward.#ReservationIsNotPovertyAlleviationProgramme pic.twitter.com/33nhgThJgv

— M.K.Stalin (@mkstalin) November 7, 2022

Meanwhile, the UDF’s second-largest constituent, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), shared the DMK’s view that the Supreme Court judgement would destroy the constitutional provisions that ensure reservation benefits for socially disadvantaged groups and communities. It would also create a new criteria for reservation based on economic status, the party felt.

The IUML believed that the economic backwardness among forward communities must be addressed by initiating various social welfare programmes. Treating economic backwardness as a criterion for reservation was patently unconstitutional and unjustified.

The state’s leading Islamic body, the Samastha Kerala Jem-Iyyathul Ulama, also held a similar view. Despite their close association with BJP and RSS, Ezhava community leaders Vellapally Natesan and his son Tushar Vellapally, too, have opposed economic reservation.

Natesan, the leader of the community-backed Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP), wrote an editorial page article in Jamaat Islami-backed newspaper Madhyamam, heavily criticising the economic reservation.

The Latin Catholic community has also found the development disappointing.

These aspects are making the CPI(M) cautious and forcing it to make amendments to its economic reservation policy.