Kolkata, Jan 13: Gujarat independent MLA and Dalit leader Jignesh Mewani said Sunday that the Centre's move to provide 10 per cent quota to upper caste poor is a step towards realizing the RSS-BJP's agenda to remove caste-based reservations from the system.


President Ram Nath Kovind Saturday gave his assent to the constitutional provision to provide 10-per cent reservation in government jobs and education to economically backward section in the general category. The bill was passed by the Parliament on January 9.

"I am apprehensive and so are the members of the Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Class that this is the first step towards putting an end to the reservation on the ground of socio-educational deprivation.

"It has been a long-pending agenda of the RSS-BJP to discard the Constitution and end reservation based on caste system," Mewani said on the sidelines of a programme here.

The Independent MLA also said that the quota system was introduced in the country to give representation to socially and educationally backward people, it wasn't meant to end poverty.

"We have absolutely no issues with the poor people from the other communities getting any benefit. But reservation is not meant to remove poverty.

"It is meant to give representation to SC/ST/OBC people, who on account of the society's caste structure, have remained socially and educationally backward," he said.

Congratulating BSP supremo Mayawati and SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav for stitching an alliance in Uttar Pradesh against the BJP, Mewani said the other opposition parties should also take cue from the coalition and make efforts for maximum polarisation of anti-BJP votes.

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Belagavi: In a murder case reported from Ukkada village of the taluk, a 28-year-old man was held by Kakathi Police on charges of poisoning his 15-day-old daughter, apparently on learning that the infant was female.

The arrested man, Bhimaraya Banappa Chippadi, is said to be a resident of Bhootaramanahatti. He was held by Kakathi Police following an investigation into a case registered against him based on a complaint filed by his wife, Sheela Chippadi, who has accused him of murdering their infant, Priyanka.

Police sources have said that Chippadi was unhappy that his wife Sheela had delivered a female child and had been pressurizing her to leave the infant at her paternal home and return alone.

On Tuesday, March 17 afternoon, Chippadi allegedly poisoned his daughter Priyanka when his wife and child were asleep. A primary investigation has revealed that the accused applied the poison to the opening of a bottle and fed it to the infant.

Chippadi reportedly escaped from the spot after poisoning his daughter.

When his wife Sheela woke up, she noticed the infant foaming at the mouth and immediately took the child to the Belagavi Institute of Medical Sciences (BIMS) Hospital, but doctors declared Priyanka dead, sources said. The doctors have reportedly suspected that the infant was fed a pesticide used on cotton crops.

Kakathi Police, who registered a case against Chippadi, probed the matter and tracked him down on Friday, March 20.

Chippadi, who was produced before the court, has been sent to judicial custody and is currently lodged in Hindalga jail.