With eye on bypolls, UP govt likely to implement reservation in contractual appointments

Lucknow: In a move aimed at wooing the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and the OBC ahead of the by-polls on ten assembly seats in the state, Uttar Pradesh is mulling to implement reservations in contractual appointments and appointments made through outsourcing.

According to the sources, a proposal in this regard was being prepared and the same would be put before the state cabinet in its meeting in the next few days.

Sources said that the SCs and STs could get 21 and two percent reservations while the OBC could get 27 per cent reservation in contractual appointments and outsourced jobs.

Soon after the results of the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls and BJP's dismal performance in the state, several BJP ministers and party leaders had raised this issue in the saffron party's meeting to discuss the results here.

Some BJP leaders had then claimed that absence of reservation for the SC, ST and OBC in the contractual appointments had adversely impacted the party's prospects in the state in the LS polls.

UP deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya had even targeted chief minister Yogi Adityanath over reservation in contractual appointments made in different departments by the state government. 

Maurya had shot off a letter to additional chief secretary, department of appointments and personnel, Devesh Chaturvedi seeking to know from him if the provisions of reservations for the SC, ST and OBC were followed in making contractual appointments in different government departments and undertakings in accordance with the GO (government order) issued in this regard during the Maywati government.

The then Mayawati government had issued a GO providing 21 percent reservation for the SC, Two percent for the ST and 27 percent for the OBC in contractual appointments in the government departments.

Union minister and Apna Dal leader Anupriya Patel, an ally of the NDA, had also written to Adityanath expressing concern over what she claimed appointing candidates from general category on reserved posts in the event of non-availability of suitable reserved candidates.

The state government denied the claim and said that all such reserved posts were not converted into unreserved if suitable reserved category candidates were not available.