“I have urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to amend the Constitution for increasing the SC quota to accommodate 17 OBCs. For protecting the interests of the castes already under the SC category, their quota in government jobs should be increased accordingly,” Mayawati told the Assembly on Tuesday.

She, however, did not specify the quantum of the hike sought in the quota.

The issue pertaining to the inclusion of 17 OBCs in the SC category is old and controversial.

In 2005, the then chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav had sent a similar recommendation to the Centre. Even before the Centre could take a decision on it, Yadav issued a notification under the UP Public Services (Reservation for SC/ST) Act, including those castes in the SC category.

The order met with legal hurdles after a local NGO filed a PIL against it in the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court. On December 12, 2005, the court stayed the state government’s order. As a result, those 17 castes neither received any benefits under the OBC category nor any under the SC category.

Criticising the previous Mulayam government’s move to issue the notification, Mayawati said it was done intentionally. Several rulings of the Supreme Court have upheld that only the Centre can include any caste or sub-caste in the SC category, after seeking the opinion of the state government, she said.

Justifying her latest demand, she said the recommended castes fulfil the criteria for being included in the SC category as they are backward on all counts — social, economic and education.

She also announced that her government has withdrawn the notification issued in 2005, so that people belonging to these 17 castes can get the benefits of reservation for OBCs.