Question

The Mandal Commission was set up under the Prime Minister _____________.
A. Morarji Desai
B. Indira Gandhi
C. Rajiv Gandhi
D. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

Answer 1

Hint: The Mandal Commission submitted its report in 1980 and identified as many as 3743 castes as educationally and socially backward classes. They constituted $52\% $ component of the population, excluding scheduled tribes (STs) and scheduled castes (SCs).

Complete answer:
The Morarji Desai Government in 1979 appointed the Second Backward Classes Commission in terms of Article 340 of the Constitution to investigate the conditions of the educationally and socially backward classes and suggest measures for their advancement under the chairmanship of B P Mandal who was a Member of Parliament. When the commission submitted its report in 1980, for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), it recommended for a reservation of $27\% $ in government jobs so that the total reservation (SCs, STs, and OBCs) amounts to $50\% $. It was in 1990, ten years after that, that reservation of $27\% $ government jobs for the OBCs was declared by the V P Singh Government. The Narasimha Rao Government, again in 1991, introduced two changes: (a) adoption of the economic criteria in granting reservation, i.e., to give a preference to the poorer sections among the OBCs in the $27\% $ quota and (b) reservation of another $10\% $ of jobs for those who are not covered by any existing schemes of reservation i.e. the poorer (economically backward) groups of higher castes.

Thus, option (A) is correct.

Note: In the famous Mandal case (1992), the $27\% $ reservation for the OBCs was declared constitutionally valid by the Supreme Court with certain conditions while the additional reservation of $10\% $ for the poorer groups of higher castes was rejected.