Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLC K Kavitha on Monday, February 19, asked the Telangana government to roll back the government order, GO No 3, issued by the state Department of Women Development, Child and Disabled Welfare. The GO, while granting horizontal reservation of 33.33% for women in the Telangana State Public Service Commission appointments, did not make any roster points for women recruitment in reserved categories.
The need for roster points arises because without it, in horizontal reservation (which is meant for women, persons with disabilities, etc), once the quota is filled, no additional candidates will be selected. However, in vertical reservation, candidates belonging to the reserved categories can compete for posts in unreserved categories and the quota remains unaffected.
Referencing articles published in The Hindu and Sakshi newspapers, MLC Kavitha expressed concern that this would hinder job opportunities for marginalised women. “Women from OC (forward castes) will be able to avail opportunities in vertical reservation but would end up affecting marginalised women who might not be able to fare as well in exams. As such, they will miss out because of the lack of a roster point system,” she said.
Simply put, the roster point system offers a break-up for categories of candidates as the 33.33% reservation for women will apply in each category (OC, BC-A, BC-B, SC etc) for posts where men and women are eligible. So if there are 10 seats for OC category, forward caste women should get three seats. However, since the seats are filled first based on who has secured higher marks, Kavitha argued that the horizontal quota is likely to be filled up by OC women, without factoring in caste privilege.
The BRS MLC spoke about how a 2022 Supreme Court ruling issued in the matter of the Rajasthan Public Service Commission gave horizontal reservation but without roster points which “slashed job opportunities for women from marginalised groups.”
“Unfortunately, the Telangana government has decided to give a special GO honouring the Supreme Court’s ruling. But we demand the state government to fight this issue legally,” she added.
“As this is a national level issue, we are writing a letter to Sonia Gandhi and also Mallikarjun Kharge to take a view on this and make sure they follow a uniform policy across the nation,” Kavitha said.
The senior BRS leader claimed that while the Congress government in Karnataka has decided to go against the Supreme Court order, the Telangana government is following it.