UNI

New Delhi, Jul 3: Former Prime Minister V P Singh on Sunday called for referendum on all aspects of reservation and said the 93rd Constitutional Amendment, providing for reservation to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in higher education, should be implemented in one go.

''There should not be any delay in implementing the 93rd Amendment. Any suggestions of installments won't do.... It should be dealt in one surgery,'' Mr Singh said at the National Seminar on Social Justice to OBCs, organized by the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK).

''Had I done the Mandal Commission in installments, there would have been chaos and bloodbath,'' said Mr Singh, who implemented the Mandal Commission recommendations as Prime Minister in 1990 that led to widespread protests across the country.

''Put all issues concerning reservation on referendum.... Let the people of India decide.... For once and for all it will be decided.''  Singh also called for reservation to OBCs in the private sector, and creating an All India Judicial Service as envisaged in the Constitution.

He rued that even 15 years after he implemented the Mandal Commission recommendations, Most Backward Classes (MBCs) had not found reservation in several states, and asked all the political parties to come out with their stand on MBCs if they were true to the cause of social justice.

''In the North, the Muslims are not getting the benefit of Mandal Commission recommendations,'' he said.

Singh supported the suggestion of doubling of seats in higher educational institutions, but said it should not be a pre-condition to implementing the Reservation Amendment. ''Let seats be doubled in one year- so that those in the general category also have enough opportunities,'' he added. Countering that merit would be sacrified at the alter of reservation, Singh said everybody had to pass the examination, be it a general category student or a reserved student.

''There is no reservation in passing the examination... Only reservation in admission,'' he said and added the Amendment was an opportunity to the under privileged to get higher education, an opportunity denied to them for thousands of years.

''When the fee is raised in educational institutions, is it not reservation for the rich class. Only when it comes to the backward classes, the question of merit crops up,'' he argued.

He said commercialisation of education would divide society with only boys of rich families getting jobs in private and public sectors and becoming the sole decision-makers.

He said the provision of ad hoc appointments, as envisaged in the Constitution, had been a stumbling block in creating the All India Judicial Service.

''Since all appointments are ad hoc, they want the judiciary by selection. Why not by examination or merit. Why not public selection in the judiciary,'' he asked.

He also suggested raising the standards of neighbourhood schools on the line of those in the UK so that everybody got the same education. ''Then there will be no need for reservation.'' He said it was peculiar genius of India that the majority was deprived of certain rights because of its birth.

''In America, the blacks are the deprived lot, but they are in a minority,'' he added.

He said the Mandal Commission was not about the issue of employment, but of empowerment so that everybody got a share in decision-making.

''It was a political revolution which irreversibly shifted power and gave to those who did not have it for thousands of years.... A great democratisation of the polity of the nation,'' he said.

Asserting that education was the key to power, he said everybody should be given knowldedge and empowered.

Hinting at the government order that implemented the Mandal Commission recommendations, he said:''Nobody has been able to erase my signature.''