New Delhi: Around 5,000 students and interns of medical colleges as well as Delhi University students are to stage a protest march on Tuesday forenoon against the Government's decision to introduce a bill in Parliament providing 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in institutions of higher learning.
"We have no other option but to protest against the decision. The matter is before the court and the government should not have thought of introducing the bill in parliament in this session," said Jitendra Singla, of the resident doctors' association of the Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC).
Resident doctors would however not take part in the protest although they are against the Bill, he said.
The Bill, to be introduced in the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament that concludes Friday, has angered sections of the student community again.
Singla said the students had earlier met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh but the meetings had not helped. They have now decided to meet United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
"We have contacted several medical colleges and universities across the country and they would soon join the agitation. We hope to turn it into a nationwide agitation so that the Government will have to consider our demands," said Binod Patro, president of the resident doctors association of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
"We will gather in huge numbers at Jantar Mantar to protest the government decision," said Dr Arnab Pal of the AIIMS Resident Doctors' Association.
The protest march would start from Jantar Mantar and the students would walk right up to the residence of Sonia Gandhi and would try to meet her.
"We were expecting that the government would try to introduce the Bill this session so all the doctors and students met earlier to decide on the course of action," said Singla.
Students from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University, IIT and other medical colleges are expected to participate in the protests.
Student groups of Delhi's medical colleges and resident doctors, as well as their counterparts in many other cities, had in April-May gone on a strike paralysing the healthcare services in public hospitals after the Government announced its policy to enhance quotas in educational institutions.
(With inputs from IANS and PTI )
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