In connection with the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report which had been submitted to the Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi in 1980, and which had been conveniently shelved by the Congress Government, the Dravidar Kazhagam was the first organization to ask why the government was sleeping over it. Thus, the it organized an agitation on October 3, 1983 with the cooperation of like-minded Parties asking why the recommendations of the Mandal Commission were not being implemented. The General Secretary of the Dravidar Kazhagam, K. Veeramani and the representatives of other parties met the President of India and urged the need for carrying out the recommendations of the Commission.
Conferences were at Patna, Nagpur, and at Allahabad going into the following year in favor of the Mandal Commission Report and in all those Conferences the General Secrety K. Veeramani represented the Dravidar Kazhagam and said that in fairness to the Backward classes the recommendations of the Commission should be totally accepted and the necessary laws for their implementation should be enacted. Two days later K. Veeramani and other supporters of the Report staged a "dharma" in front of the Prime Minister's residence in order to draw her attention to the urgency of the problem; they were all arrested immediately. Indira Gandhi did not yield to pressures on this question. The Congress government under Rajiv Gandhi continued the same policy.
When V.P. Singh assumed office as Prime Minister of India, the Parliament in August 1990 accepted the Mandal Commission Report, and planned to implement it. Immediately the forward classes in some states rose against it. Reacting against this unfeeling attitude of the forward class people, the Dravidar Kazhagam and the DMK have been urging the Prime Minister to stand up to his commitment. On October 22, 1990 with staunch support of the Chief Minister Kalaignar Karunanidhi, these two Parties organized a state wide "bandh" in Tamil Nadu to show how the entire state stands solidly in support of the Mandal Commission Report. The Prime Minister is a man of principles and he has been repeatedly saying that he is committed to implement the recommendations of the Mandal Commission. In the meantime, some of the forward class people have moved the Supreme Court and that court has passed Stay Orders against the implementation of the Report. Though the hands of the Government were tied by this stay order, the Kazhagam has continued to work for the implementation of the Report.
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