Chairman of the confederation Udit Raj charged the government of being apathetic towards the demands of SCs and STs, and said he and other members of the organisation would fast-unto-death from December 15.

He said that marginalisation of people in the lower strata of society was the primary reason behind the demand for separate states and urged the government to address their problems.

Raj said there were several competent SC/ST candidates, but they were unemployed as private sectors did not have reservation for them.

"The private sector employs very few persons from the SC/ST category especially in positions of power. Therefore, the government should intervene to address the inequality," he said. He also charged the UPA government of ignoring the issue despite the fact that reservation was part of the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of UPA 1.

Apart from reservation in private sector, the confederation also demanded enactment of the Reservation Act, abolition of contract labour system in government services, caste certificates issued by one state to be made valid in all states and reservation in higher judiciary and the Armed Forces.