BSP chief Mayawati (The Telegraph file picture)Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati has alleged that the Yogi Adityanath government has removed 17 castes from the list of Other Backward Classes and labelled them Scheduled Castes, depriving them of their right to reservation as the change didn’t follow constitutional norms. A state government is not authorised to change the class of a caste, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister added. Ignoring constitutional compulsions, the Adityanath government has deleted 17 castes from the OBC list and included them as Scheduled Castes unconstitutionally,” Mayawati told reporters in Lucknow on Monday. The Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government had in 2013 changed the category of these 17 MBCs and then written to the then UPA government at the Centre to include them in the list of Scheduled Castes. In 2016 the Akhilesh administration issued a government order (GO) to include these castes in the SC list.

Source: The Telegraph July 01, 2019 23:48 UTC