Hyderabad: Questioning the government whether it would provide entire 42 per cent reservations to BCs or include Muslims in it, BJP member Payal Shankar on Sunday alleged that the government has mentioned increasing the reservations from 4 per cent to 6 per cent in the GO.

Supporting the bill in the Assembly on Sunday, Payal Shankar said that first there should be a discussion on the Kamareddy declaration before this. He questioned what is the difficulty in providing 42 per cent reservations, which don’t need legislation like party posts etc? “Are there no eligible persons among BCs? What is the number of BCs in the cabinet? There is no money with the BC corporations. They want votes of BCs but no posts to the community in the cabinet. Out of the six RTI commissioners not a single post was given to BCs,” said Payal Shankar.

Intervening here, Minister V Srihari said, “We also thought he (Payal Shankar) would get a seat in the first row (in the Assembly). How far it is right to question the government which is going with commitment?”

Legislative Affairs Minister D Sridhar Babu said that the BJP member should know that it is the Centre which should take steps in implementation of the reservations but the member was speaking like a short discussion.

Minister Ponnam Prabhakar advised the members to go as per the mood of the house and give suggestions what needs to be done for getting the reservations as soon as possible.

Payal Shankar pointed out that the BJP president with his legal expertise said that this would not stay in the court and wanted the government to take steps. “We had already told in the past... that the government will take up dharna in Delhi, they did, they will put the blame on the opposition parties,” said Payal Shankar. He pointed out that the government issued GO which mentioned that the reservations will be increased from 4 to 6 per cent.

Minister Ponnam Prabhakar clarified that the 42 per cent reservations will be only for BCs and there was no question of including Muslims. Government whip said that the BJP leaders were saying before the Telugu people that they are supporting but when it comes to going to Modi, they are opposing.