TDP National President N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday accused the Jaganmohan Reddy Government of depriving the downtrodden people of their rights for progress and empowerment.
He said the Government was not showing sincerity and empathy towards implementing the GO No 3 brought on January 10, 2000. This GO reserves all the posts of teachers in the schools situated in the scheduled areas in Andhra Pradesh with local Scheduled Tribe candidates only out of whom 33 1/3 percent shall be women.
Mr. Naidu, in a letter addressed to Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy, advised the Government not to harm the interests of the tribal people by ignoring the GO 3. It has been implemented for over two decades benefitting and empowering many tribal people. Now, the tribal people have lost their right to teaching jobs. This loss is bound to have a retrograde effect on the development of the tribals as a whole.
The TDP chief drew the CM’s attention to a quote of Jaipal Singh Munda, hockey champion and the lone representative of tribal people in the Constituent Assembly. Jaipal Singh said, “The whole history of my people is one of continuous exploitation and dispossession by the non-aboriginals of India punctuated by rebellions and disorder, and yet I take Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru at his word. I take you all at your word that now we are going to start a new chapter, a new chapter of Independent India where there is equality of opportunity, where no one would be neglected.”
Mr. Naidu said that as commented by Jaipal Singh Munda, it is the responsibility of Government to see it that there will be ‘equality of opportunity’ and no tribal would be ‘dispossessed or exploited’ henceforth. It is also our constitutional commitment to ensure that the tribal people are developed and empowered on par with others. TDP is wedded to this constitutional commitment and hence brought the GO No. 3 to empower tribals in the year 2000.
Mr. Naidu said the Government appears not interested in the empowerment of weak, vulnerable and downtrodden sections of the society. Earlier, the BC reservations in local bodies were reduced from 34 per cent to 24 per cent, due to which BCs lost political empowerment. The Government did not make a suitable attempt to protect the reservations in local bodies for BCs. In this context, there is a need to take immediate and suitable action by the Government to protect the rights of tribal people for getting all the teaching jobs in Schools located in scheduled tribal areas as per GO No. 3.
