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Lucknow: BSP supremo Mayawati on Sunday, August 23, opposed the demand for replacing caste-based reservation with reservation on economic grounds, saying such a move would not be in the country’s interest.

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said the constitutional provision of reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs was intended to address the discrimination and deprivation faced by these communities for centuries.

She said those raising demands against caste-based reservation should refrain from taking any step that could undermine the constitutional objective of building an egalitarian society and a developed and dignified nation.

The Delhi Police had on Friday detained several protesters, who gathered at Jantar Mantar in Delhi for an anti-reservation demonstration.

The protesters were mobilised through social media for the demonstration, demanding that economic criteria be given precedence over caste in determining eligibility for government support and reservation.

Referring to the demand, Mayawati said neither Rahul Gandhi nor any other Congress leader went there even to try to explain their position to the protesters.

She said this reflected what she described as the Congress’s “anti-reservation mindset” towards these communities.

Mayawati cited B R Ambedkar’s views on casteism and said abandoning casteism was the “greatest patriotism”.

She said governments at the Centre and in the states were already spending substantial public money on several poverty alleviation programmes, but if their intended benefits were not reaching people because of corruption and administrative shortcomings, it was a failure of the government system.

“Reservation on economic grounds is already in place in the country,” she said, adding that even poor families from the upper-caste communities were not getting its full benefit and that the arrangement had largely proved inadequate.

Mayawati alleged that a “corrupt and casteist” government system had prevented the constitutional provisions relating to reservation from being properly implemented on the ground.

SC, ST and OBC communities continued to face poverty, caste-based discrimination, exploitation, atrocities and social prejudice even decades after Independence, she claimed.

She urged governments not to provide “shelter or protection” to elements opposing reservation and appealed to political parties and people not to indulge in “cheap politics” over the sensitive issue.