NEW DELHI: BJP is “actively considering” a proposal that will mean a radical shift in the country’s affirmative action policy — keeping third generation children of quota beneficiary families outside the ambit of reservations for government jobs and income ceilings for beneficiaries. “The party has totally agreed in principle to have a re-look at the reservation policy for the scheduled castes,” BJP scheduled caste morcha chief and former minister in NDA government Sanjay Paswan told ET.“I can assure you we will implement it if voted to power. This is not my personal view but view of BJP. We will also bring out a white paper on what Dalits have got in last 60 years, how some dalit communities benefited while others continue to be deprived,” Paswan said.Senior BJP leaders who spoke to ET on the condition they not be identified said such a proposal was “under active consideration”. One needs to think in terms of the individual and not his or her caste. Society should help the individual to come out of the reservation net. This is possible only when there is a regrouping of the scheduled caste list. Adopting the economy criteria can do this though I would not use the term creamy layer here,” Paswan said.He underscored the need for putting an income rider to remove dalit families, which have an income of above Rs 1 lakh per month, from getting reservation in government jobs.A specific proposal is to remove the children whose both parents are Class II government employees or one parent is a Class I officer from the list of SC beneficiaries. Paswan gave his own example: “I am an engineer by profession and have been an MP. Why should my sons get reservation? Today dalits should not be scared of debating this issue.”While most leaders did not want to discuss this radical change on record, BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi accepted the argument while advising caution.“We don’t want to remove anyone from the list of beneficiaries. But there is need to give benefit of reservation to those dalits who are economically and socially weaker. Paswan, who has asked his party to field him from a general constituency in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, feels there is a need to debate whether children of dalit ministers and MPs should avail of the quotas.Korivi Vinay Kumar, an independent dalit activist who had fought from a Praja Rajyam ticket in the last assembly polls from Andhra, has been seeking this change for long. “In a situation of declining employment opportunities in public sector undertakings, the job pie is getting smaller and poor first generation dalits are being forced to compete with rich and privileged groups within the dalit community.The current system is highly unscientific, which only helps certain families to corner all the benefits of reservation,” said Vinay Kumar. Other BJP leaders, preferring anonymity, maintain that there is also a need to rejig sub-groups among scheduled castes who have dominated the bureaucracy and also the political space. Some of them have been traditionally voting for parties like BSP and Congress. Paswan argued that sub-categorisation of dalits into mahadalits done by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Bihar was merely for political gains and not social justice. “In Bihar, 23 dalit castes have been put in a separate category. But Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has made the dalit and mahadalit categories on political lines, which is not fair. Those who vote for him are in mahadalit category,” he said. Such sub-categories among Dalits have already been tried in states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Bihar.Accepting this, the BJP leader said his own subcaste Paswan in Bihar, Ramdasis in Punjab, Pallar in Tamil Nadu and Mala in Andhra Pradesh are in a separate category among the scheduled castes. BJP-led NDA would aim to give each Dalit family the benefit of the social schemes for them, be it of food, land, employment or any other. “Half of the Dalit families are still deprived of the government programmes meant for them though there are 68 welfare schemes for the scheduled castes,” he said.