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Showdown looms in J&K after cabinet clears CSC report on reservations, forwards it to LG for approval

SRINAGAR: A confrontation is brewing in Jammu & Kashmir after the Omar Abdullah cabinet approved the Cabinet Sub Committees reservation report and sent it to Lt Governor Manoj Sinha for final clearance. The move has triggered sharp reactions, with the Association of Residents of Backwards Areas (RBA) and several Kashmiri leaders warning against reducing the 10% RBA quota to increase the Open Merit share. Meanwhile, Open Merit (OM) students have rejected token cuts to select categories and demanded that the report be made public before approval. The CM Omar Abdullah yesterday chaired an all-important cabinet meeting at his Jammu residence to discuss the CSC report on the reservation. The meeting, which lasted for over an hour, cleared the CSC eport and forwarded it to LG Sinha for approval. The extent of the OM quota increase, and which categories may see a reduction, remains to be seen. Talking to reporters after the meeting, Omar said the government had attempted to fulfil its commitment to rationalise the reservation policy while ensuring no injustice is done to anybody. The cabinet, he said, has adopted a fair and transparent process and carried out a detailed exercise examining every aspect of the reservation structure. We have done a detailed exercise, and every issue was discussed. We have made all efforts on our part to resolve this issue. Reservation has become a flash point in J&K with students and political parties demanding a balanced reservation policy. The reservation policy introduced by Lt Governor's administration before last years Assembly polls raised the reserved-category quota to over 60%, reducing Open Merit quota to about 30%. Currently, SCs have 8% quota, ST 1 10%, ST 2 10%, EWS 10%, Residents of Backward Areas (RBA) 10%, Other Backward Classes (OBC) 8% and ALC/IB 4%. Besides, there is a 10 % horizontal reservation, including six percent to ex-Servicemen and four percent to Persons with Disabilities (PwDs). CM Omar Abdullah vows fair rationalisation of reservation policy in J&K With the CM refusing to divulge details about the CSC report, sources said the quota of Residents of Backwards Areas (RBA) and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) has been cut b 3 and 7 per cent respectively to increase the Open Merit share to 40 percent from the existing 30 percent. The RBA Category Association of J&K has rejected any proposal to drastically reduce or abolish the quota. A fair solution lies in rational adjustment, not in depriving any vulnerable group of its only support mechanism. If required, the RBA quota may be marginally reduced by 5 or 6 percent to help restore merit space, but it should not be abolished, the Association stated. It argued that many far-flung and mountainous regions still lack basic developmental benchmarks. Reform is welcome, but removal would be unjust, it said. Opposition Peoples Conference chairman and MLA Sajjad Gani Lone also warned against cuts to the RBA quota, calling it the only reserved category where Kashmiris benefitted. He said reducing it would lead to systematic exclusion of Kashmiris in the recruitment process and accused the NC government of repeating past injustices. According to Lone, the elected government could restore district and divisional recruitment through legislation. The Open Merit Students Association J&K has also cautioned that minor or cosmetic reductions in one or two categories would not be accepted. Anything less than full, category-wide rationalisation is a direct insult to lakhs of aspirants. Cosmetic cuts are unacceptable, unforgivable, and will be resisted at every level, it stated and demanded that the CSC report cleared by the cabinet be made public before approval. The Association stressed that divisional-wise reservation remains the most practical and balanced reform approach for J&K. Former Srinagar Mayor Junaid Mattu said, A rationalisation that leaves ST with 20%, SC with 10% (including affluent creamy layers of those categories) but takes the axe to the poorest and most deserving economically weaker section of the society (EWS), the ones truly deserving affirmative action. Slashing RBA is another convenient wound inflicted on the people of Kashmir, the perpetual soft targets for NC. The result of this cut will mean lesser people from Kashmir qualifying for government jobs and professional examinations. The math is crystal clear. If the old reservation policy (currently in vogue) was the injury. This rationalisation is the insult, he said. Even remotely accepting this utter injustice would be a monumental sell-out that our future generations wont forgive us for, Junaid posted on X. Meanwhile, All Parties Sikh Coordination Committee (APSCC) chairman Jagmohan Singh Raina demanded reservation for Sikhs in education stressing that under National Minority Act, Sikh community is a minority but still the benefits of reservation have not been extended to youth of the community. This is injustice to the community and Sikh youth have been pushed to the wall. Singh further said reservation benefits should be given to people who really deserve it and that too should be one time and not a continuous process. It has been observed that a person gets the benefits of reservation at multiple fronts. The process needs to be changed, and it should be the prerogative of the candidate to avail the reservation benefits at the education level or at the job level. Once a youth avails the benefits of reservation, the process should be stopped forthwith. It is not just to extend the benefits of the reservation to the same youth time and again, he said. The APSCC chairman said a committee of experts should be formed to find out who should be given the reservation benefits.