Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections | Vanniyar quota will not affect any other neighborhood: Ramadoss

One of Tamil Nadu’s senior political leaders and PMK founder S. Ramadoss in an interview insists that unique reservation for Vanniyars will not result in consolidation of other MBC communities. He believes that the folks will be certain that the DMK does not return to energy. Edited excerpts:

The AIADMK-PMK alliance confronted a rout, attributed to the anti-Modi wave, in 2019. With rising gasoline and LPG costs, what do you suppose will give your alliance an enormous victory?

There isn’t any denying that rising petrol, diesel and cooking fuel costs will affect our folks. The PMK at all times has at all times insisted on discount of taxes on fuels to safeguard the folks. It is simply a short lived phenomenon as oil-producing nations have determined to extend the manufacturing of crude oil; progressively, gasoline costs will come down.

Besides, these come below the Centre’s area. The persons are effectively conscious that the forthcoming election is for the Tamil Nadu Assembly. The AIADMK has introduced the provisioning of six free LPG cylinders, yearly, to each family, and this will cut back the folks’s burden to a terrific extent.

Beyond all this, persons are effectively conscious in regards to the hurt if the DMK returns to energy. Therefore, the rise in gasoline costs will not have a huge effect. At the identical time, the promised monetary help of ₹1,500 a month will garner extra votes.

You positioned a 10-point demand in 2019 earlier than becoming a member of the AIADMK alliance. But now you’ve gotten positioned solely the Vanniyar reservation demand…

Separate reservation for the Vanniyar neighborhood is not a brand new demand. The want for the conduct of a caste-based census in Tamil Nadu was one in every of our main calls for in 2019.

The goal is to supply population-based reservations to all communities, together with Vanniyars. Now, a fee has been constituted to gather caste-based inhabitants knowledge. Once the caste-based knowledge is out there, satisfactory reservation will be supplied to all communities, together with Vanniyars.

Five of 10 calls for put forth by the PMK in 2019 have been fulfilled. The get together will proceed to insist that the remaining be fulfilled as effectively.

There is a view that the ten.5% reservation will result in a consolidation of non-Vanniyars in MBC, towards the AIADMK and the PMK…

The 10.5% reservation supplied for Vanniyars will not affect any other MBC neighborhood. Every MBC neighborhood will get extra reservation, besides Vanniyars. The whole MBC inhabitants is 20.87% and the reservation supplied to them is 20%.

According to the Ambasankar and Janardhanan Commissions, the inhabitants of Vanniyars is 13.6%. The inhabitants of other MBCs is 7.2%. Only 10.5% reservation is supplied for 13.6% of Vanniyars, whereas the remaining 7.2% of MBCs are supplied with 9.5% reservation. Hence, there is no such thing as a unfavorable influence on them. Therefore, it’s unsuitable to state that other MBCs are rallying towards the AIADMK and the PMK. No one has objected to this. Even the protests [which he described as a “single-digit crowd”] held within the southern districts have been provoked by some events.

Are you not working the danger of being labelled a Vanniyar get together, limiting your political development?

Please learn our manifesto. We are demanding a caste census. If Brahmins are 3% of the inhabitants, give them 3% illustration. In Kerala, reservation is split into eight compartments on the idea of castes, not a cluster of castes. The Ezhavas alone have been given 14% reservation. Similarly, the Nadars, Vishwakarmas, Latin Christians… have been given reservation individually. We are saying the identical.

First take the caste census. It was final achieved in 1931 by the British. A census for SC/STs is finished each 10 years.

Vanniyars will represent round 15% of the inhabitants. We have achieved 10.5% reservation as a primary step. If a coconut should be divided amongst 100 folks, it needs to be damaged into 100 items. We need everybody to review, get jobs and have good well being.

The PMK disagreed with the NPR, the CAA and the NRC. Your MP Anbumani in 2019 stated PMK would change the insurance policies of the AIADMK and the BJP from inside. Have you had a dialog with the BJP management concerning the difficulty?

We do not agree with the NPR, the CAA and the NRC. We have made this clear each in get together resolutions and in our election manifesto. The AIADMK’s stand on the difficulty has modified to an extent, and the State has written to the Centre, requesting for an announcement that controversial questions will be averted within the strategy of making ready the NPR. We additionally strongly consider that the Centre’s stand on the difficulty will change.

With the State’s taxation revenues falling and debt rising, do you suppose the State can afford to implement liquor prohibition?

What is unsuitable if the State loses that income? My dream is to see a Tamil Nadu with out a drop of liquor. Former Chief Ministers Rajaji, O.P. Ramasamy Reddiar, Kamaraj, Bhaktavatsalam and Annadurai applied prohibition. Annadurai, when requested about how we will get income then, retorted, “If there is butter in the hands of a leprosy patient, will we take it?” It was Karunanidhi who eliminated prohibition. I’ve fought for 40 years towards liquor. In Tamil Nadu, even 12-year-olds have began ingesting liquor. DMK and AIADMK businessmen are promoting over-priced liquor. This can be a form of corruption.

Considering that you’ve got been such a powerful critic of the Dravidian events, what are your ideas on their future?

In the identify of Dravidian ideology, our rights have been compromised or given as much as other southern States. In my opinion, they’ve by no means revered our rights. No political philosophy or get together will perish.

Political philosophies will maintain always, solely their affect could differ infrequently.