OBC quota: Panel puts off decision

Health services hit as anti-reservation stir spreads to other parts of the country

Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, briefing the media after the CCPA meeting, said the meeting reviewed the reservation issue. "We will come out with steps that will satisfy everyone," he said, presumably constrained by the fact that Parliament was in session.

Interestingly, the fact that a CCPA meeting was being held was made public by the Congress party at its routine briefing earlier in the day. This was to correct the perception that the government was just sitting back and letting the agitation spread.

According to top sources in the government, the main discussion in the CCPA centred around ways in which to delay extending reservations to OBCs at least till the caste backlash had spent itself.

Earlier in the day, striking medical students upped the ante and rejected Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh's invitation for talks on reservation, saying they had lost 'faith' in him. They instead demanded that the PM meet them to resolve the issue.

"He (Singh) had assured us that he would hold talks with us before referring the Bill on reservation to the Union Cabinet. But he did not do that and we now have no faith in him," Safal, a representative of the Youth for Equality, said.

Angry in equal measure at the lathicharge on medical students in Mumbai on Saturday and the fear that caste-based reservation would reduce the total number of medical college seats at the postgraduate level, students demonstrated in several states including Orissa, West Bengal, Tripura, Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

In Delhi, health services came to a standstill in several hospitals as the Union health ministry said it would take action against striking resident doctors of the Central Government-run hospitals.

"We have not reported for our duties but we are running parallel OPDs," Subrato Mandal, a resident doctor from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, said. Several private hospitals such as Fortis and GM Modi have also joined in the strike.

In Mumbai, students, doctors and consultants from the city and Thane collected at Azad Maidan in South Mumbai demanding Police Commissioner AN Roy take responsibility for his subordinate's 'excesses' on doctors on May 13.

In a bid to pacify the students, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said Roy had been asked to conduct the probe and submit a report within a week. "From the visuals we have seen on TV screens, it looks like excessive force was used against the agitating students," the chief minister said.

At the same time, a pro-reservation group of medical students, supported by the Republican Party of India under the leadership of Ramdas Athawale announced its own programme of protest.

In Gujarat, protesting medical students took to the streets and cleaned the windows of cars and buses and distributed pamphlets as part of their agitation.

However, medical services in the city were not affected as resident doctors stayed away from the agitation.

The students' movement found political resonance.The BJP said it was not against reservation, but wanted merit and economic backwardness also to be taken into account. It warned it would vociferously raise its voice in Parliament tomorrow over police 'atrocities' against protesting medical students.

BJP Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha VK Malhotra said: "It (reservation) is a constitutional provision. We are not against reservations as such but we would like to know what percentage the government wants to reserve and whether it reconciles with merit and addressed the issues raised by the students, including economic backwardness."

"Even if you don't agree with the students, this kind of police action including lathicharge and water cannon is uncalled for," he said.

The CPI(M) condemned the 'brutal' lathicharge on medical students and said talks should be held and various options, including increasing the number of seats, explored to resolve the issue expeditiously.