Quota panel gets extension

With the UPA���s quota decision causing upper-caste unease about the Congress, the government on Thursday granted a year���s extension to the commission evolving the criteria for identification of economically backward classes that are not covered in the existing reservation policy.

The move comes in the backdrop of an assessment in the Congress that in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, the quota issue has been working to the advantage of BJP. The BJP had fared well in the recent civic elections there.

Although the BJP has been publicly backing the OBC quota move, it has been making some deft manoeuvres to cash in on the unhappiness in the upper castes. The latter, which aided the BJP���s electoral project in the past, have been voting for different political formations after its loss of pre-eminence in the state���s politics.