Patel got a strong rebuttal from the Yogi government. Additional Chief Secretary (Appointment) Devesh Chaturvedi wrote back to her saying that while the UP Public Service Commission (UPPSC) conducts a code-based interview process in which the candidate’s name, reservation category, age etc are kept hidden, its interview committee does not mention “not suitable” for any candidate but instead mentions a grade which is later converted to marks.
His letter, portions of which ThePrint has seen, further said that if candidates from a category are unable to get the minimum marks required or are unavailable, the commission has no right to convert these seats into unreserved, but such vacancies are carried forward, according to norms.
While BJP sources said Patel’s letter, seen as a bid to undermine the Yogi government, came as a surprise, political leaders and analysts ThePrint spoke to have different theories about her move. One of them is that it reflected the Apna Dal (S)’s attempts to regain lost ground. Of the two seats the party contested in the Lok Sabha elections — Mirzapur and Robertsganj — it lost one. In Mirzapur, Patel’s winning margin plummeted from around 2.3 lakh in 2019 to merely 37,800.
While alleged irregularities in the recruitment of teachers, professors, university staff etc. have been reported from across the state, it is the timing of the letter that has grabbed eyeballs, especially in the wake of Patel’s speech on Swabhiman Divas, observed Tuesday, when her party celebrated the 75th birth anniversary of its late founder Sone lal Patel, the minister’s father.
In her speech at the event, Patel targeted the “seasonal parties of social justice”, an indirect dig at the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress, whose alliance secured considerable support from the backwards and Dalits in the Lok Sabha elections, together winning 43 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Out of 34 OBC MPs from UP in the Lok Sabha, 21 are from the opposition bloc — 16 of them being non-Yadavs — indicating how they weaned away a significant chunk of what was perceived to be an NDA vote bank.
At Tuesday’s event, Patel held the Constitution as she warned her supporters to be wary of those who talk about social justice only when out of power. She reiterated her controversial statement that “kings are born out of EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines)”, stating that this was what the Constitution provided.
Mirza Asmer Beg, a professor of political science at Aligarh Muslim University, told ThePrint that while reserved category seats remaining vacant for a long time and the government’s inability to be able to fill them is an allegation that keeps raising its head, Patel’s letter is also a fallout of the Apna Dal(S)’s performance in the Lok Sabha polls and the success of the Samajwadi Party’s Pichhde (Backward), Dalit, Alpsankhyak (minorities) or ‘PDA’ pitch.
“The 2024 Lok Sabha polls saw that the caste groups that had consolidated behind the NDA in the past elections have opened up and several members of these communities voted for the SP. When these groups have multiple options, it is obvious that Anupriya Patel, who runs a party formed on the plank of social justice, will try to ensure that her vote bank is intact,” said Beg.
He added that Patel had raised the issue of irregularities in the recruitment process for 69,000 assistant teachers in the past too, but this is a bid to send a message that her party is the “real benefactor of the backwards”.
Shashikant Pandey, former head of the political science department at Lucknow’s Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, is of the opinion that the fact that the letter has been made public suggests there is more behind the move.
“Considering that Anupriya Patel won with a slender margin while her party lost the second seat, and the SP-Congress alliance was able to gain votes of the backwards and Dalits, and with her sister Pallavi Patel too wooing the backwards, it is a message to the community that her party is the one raising issues of the backwards,” Pandey said.
He added: “Given that Akhilesh Yadav has successfully been able to establish himself as an alternative for the Dalits too, it is her (Anupriya’s) bid to show that she, as a Kurmi leader, is the rightful representative of the OBCs. As voters get restless, they have to be shown that their leader is raising their concerns and that’s what she is trying to do.”
Meanwhile, CM Yogi Adityanath’s loyalists ThePrint spoke to believe this could not have happened without the tacit consent of the BJP’s central leadership. “The fact that the letter, hitting out at the UP government, was made public shows that it has tacit approval of the top leadership,” said a party leader perceived to be close to the CM.
Speaking to ThePrint, Apna Dal (S) state spokesperson Rajesh Srivastava said all those commenting that their vote bank is shifting should have seen the crowd of supporters that turned up in Lucknow for Swabhiman Diwas.
“It is proof that people are joining us and nobody is going anywhere. This crowd was not a crowd that was forcefully gathered. The issue should have been brought to the notice of the CM, which is why it was raised,” he added.
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Reservation row not new
While the UP government has rebutted Patel’s claims, the allegations of OBC and SC/ST candidates being denied their share of government job appointments are not new.
Even state BJP leaders acknowledge that irregularities in filling up vacancies meant for reserved category candidates is an issue that needs the government’s attention.
“When politicians make statements, there is a political motive behind it. The issue of OBC and SC candidates being denied their share had gained traction in the wake of candidates protesting the alleged irregularities in the recruitment of 69,000 assistant teachers in 2019,” said a UP BJP leader, not wanting to be named.
He added: “The allegation was that the seats for reserved category candidates were filled by general category candidates. They have been protesting for almost five years now, but the government has not been able to resolve their grievances.”
The leader further said that while it is true that leaders associated with the Samajwadi Party were part of the protests, the same cannot be said about all protesters. “Anupriya Patel had raised the matter earlier too.”
He added that the allegation that the government is denying opportunities to candidates from reserved categories by outsourcing jobs also holds ground. “Jobs that are outsourced need no reservation and are based solely on merit. In several departments, jobs for sanitation workers, security personnel and fourth-class employees are now being outsourced. Reservation policy is not being followed there.”
SP state secretary Sumit Yadav, who was at the forefront of the 2019 statewide protests in connection with the controversial recruitment of 69,000 assistant teachers, said that when the aggrieved candidates approached the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC), the commission found that OBC candidates who made the cut-off for unreserved seats were not adjusted in general category, but reserved category seats. ThePrint has seen the NCBC’s report.
“The NCBC found that while it is a reservation rule that if a candidate from reserved category attains the maximum cut-off for unreserved category, she will be adjusted in an unreserved seat even if reserved seats are left, 5,844 OBC candidates who could have been under the unreserved merit list were shown under reserved category list and there was overlapping in reserved and unreserved seats,” Yadav said, adding that the matter is in court.
‘UP institutions don’t include OBC representative in interview process’
Anoop Patel, former JNU scholar and editor of Youth India Magazine, told ThePrint that while in JNU, a professor from the OBC, SC/ST or EWS (Economically Weaker Sections) communities is made an observer in the selection committee that handles PhD and other admissions, it is not the case in higher education institutions or recruitments done by UP government bodies like the UPPSC.
“The observer’s vote is also counted in the selection. In case of any irregularity, the observer can issue a dissent note. Further, there is a liaison officer whose job is to check if the reserved vacancy is being properly advertised,” he said.
He further claimed that while opposition parties are “politicising” this issue, there is indeed discrimination against reserved category candidates in the interview process “because of the existing power structure where dominant people don’t want anyone else to enter”.
“In UP too, most heads of institutes belong to upper castes,” said Patel.
The former JNU scholar further said that before 2017, similar allegations had been levelled against the then SP government too for favouring Yadavs for government jobs.
“But as far as Apna Dal (S) is concerned, its party chief did not vociferously raise the issue of 69,000 assistant teachers’ recruitment. Their founder was different, but the current party leadership has a safety valve thanks to their alliance with ruling BJP. However, the recent election has halved their power and she (Anupriya Patel) herself has managed to win which is why her letter is more political,” he added.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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