Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Sunday said that reservation will not guarantee employment as jobs are reducing in the country.
Nitin Gadkari made the remarks in an interaction with the reporters over the ongoing agitation by the Marathas and other groups for reservation in Maharashtra and in other parts of the country.
“Let’s us assume the reservation is given. But there are no jobs. Because in banks, the jobs have shrunk because of IT. The government recruitment is frozen. Where are the jobs?” he asked.
“The problem with the quota is that backwardness is becoming a political interest. Everyone says I am backward. In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, Brahmins are strong. They dominate politics. (And) They say they are backward,” the senior BJP leader said.
“So one school of thought is that a poor person is a poor person, he has no caste, creed or language. Whatever may be the religion — the Muslim, the Hindu or the Maratha (a caste), in all communities there is one section which has no clothes to wear, no food to eat.
“One school of thought also is (that) we must also consider the poorest of the poor section in every community,” he said.
This is a “socio-economic thinking” and it must not be politicised, the Union Minister said.
Nitin Gadkari urged people to maintain peace and said that the responsible political parties must not add fuel to the fire.
Later in a tweet Gadkari clarified that the central government is not going to change the reservation criteria. “My attention has been drawn to certain media reports attributed to me. There is absolutely no thinking at the central government to change the reservation criteria from castes to economic conditions,” he tweeted.
