Bhubaneswar, August 24: The proceedings of Odisha Assembly were on Saturday disrupted by opposition Congress and BJD members who raised concerns about the alleged insufficient reservation for ST, SC, and OBC candidates in MBBS and BDS admissions.
This disturbance led to the House being suspended until 4 pm.
On Saturday when the assembly was convened, Opposition Biju Janata Dal and Congress MLAs stormed into the well of the house and demanded adequate reservation for SCs, STs, and OBC people.
They started sloganeering demanding adequate reservation for SC, ST, and OBC in government jobs and education institutions.
They alleged that students from certain categories are not receiving appropriate reservations in MBBS.
Congress legislative leader Rama Chandra Kadam brought up the reservation issue for SCs, STs, and OBCs, noting that while OBCs constitute 54 percent of the state’s population and SCs and STs together make up 40 percent, they are not adequately represented. Instead of the expected 38.75 percent, only 20 percent of reservations are allocated to the SC and ST categories, and no reservation is provided for other backward classes-OBC.
Rama Chandra Kadam said that a total of 1360 seats are sought for enrollment in NEET, private universities, and AIIMS. Of these, 10% are reserved for the general category students under the EWS quota, who represent 6% of the state’s population. However, SC and STs are allocated only 20% of reservations instead of their 38.75% share, leading to a loss of about 255 MBBS seats. Similarly, OBCs are not granted any reservation, which results in a potential loss of 367 seats. Consequently, there is a call to cancel the enrollment process starting from the 29th of this month.
