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Hyderabad: Telangana Rakshana Sena (TRS) chief K Kavitha on Thursday, August 6, warned that her party would organise a “Chalo Delhi” rally with a thousand cars if the central government failed to pass the Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation Bill before the upcoming Budget Session.

Addressing the Samajika Nyaya Sankalpa Sabha, a social justice resolution meeting, at Saroornagar in Hyderabad, she said would dedicate her life to fighting for social justice for all marginalised communities. Backward Classes (BC) deserved 50 per cent representation in legislatures and TRS would continue to agitate nationally until that goal was achieved, Kavitha said.

“My birth was not in my hands, but who I work for is my decision,” she said, addressing those who questioned why someone from an upper caste family was speaking for BCs. “I will not say or do anything that my conscience does not permit. I am here with the firm belief that change will come.”

Drawing on historical examples, she argued that many transformative changes in India had been brought about by democratically-minded people from upper-caste backgrounds, citing the Buddha, Sahu Maharaj, former Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh, who implemented the Mandal Commission report despite Congress sitting on it for 20 years, and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who placed BC reservations under the Ninth Schedule.

“Social justice does not mean upper castes will lose their seats. The Buddha himself stepped outside the palace, saw the world and built a democratic republic. We must take such people as our inspiration,” she said.

BCs condition worse than SCs, STs: Kavitha

Kavitha said 71 per cent of BCs were in conditions worse than those of the Scheduled Castes (SC), and that SC and Scheduled Tribes (ST) backlog posts running into lakhs remained unfilled across the country. She said 97 per cent of Dalits and Adivasis continued to live in extreme backwardness despite existing reservations and that Muslims had not even been able to access positions as basic as village sarpanch.

Explaining her understanding of social justice, she said, “If there are 100 breads for 100 people, 10 people eating 90 of them is injustice. Justice is feeding all 100.”

She criticised Congress for promising 42 per cent reservations to BCs while ignoring BC Muslims, and took a dig at both Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and Union Minister G Kishan Reddy, accusing them of maintaining a political understanding behind the scenes while putting on a show of opposition in public. She also noted that the OBC reservation Bill pending with the President had not been acted upon.

Kavitha said the social justice campaign launched at the gathering would continue till Savitribai Phule‘s birth anniversary, with meetings to be held in every village, and that the movement’s progress would be reviewed on August 6 next year.