Maharashtra: Fight for OBC reservation heats up

Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation is turning into a hot political issue in Maharashtra as OBC Jan Morcha, an umbrella body of various OBC organisations, staged protests across the state on Thursday

Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation is turning into a hot political issue in Maharashtra as OBC Jan Morcha, an umbrella body of various OBC organisations, staged protests across the state on Thursday. The outfits have been demanding restoration of the 27% political reservation in all local bodies.

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The Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), too, has declared to hold statewide protests from June 26. The party has declared chakka jam (road block) at around 1,000 places in the state.

With the state election commission’s announcement on holding bypoll for the vacant seats in five zilla parishads — Dhule, Nandurbar, Akola, Washim, and Nagpur — following the Supreme Court’s order on OBC reservation, the political temperature has also started soaring in the state. All parties have demanded for postponement of the bypolls till the issue is sorted out.

The by-poll is slated to be held on July 19 and votes will be counted on July 20.

The OBC reservation issue is of political importance as the community, though fragmented into nearly 382 castes, makes up nearly 52% of the state’s population.

OBCs are on the verge of losing their political reservation in local bodies across Maharashtra as it was quashed by the Supreme Court last month. The Apex court ruled that the reservation in favour of OBCs in local bodies should not exceed the 50% cap in reservation quota. It also directed the state to appoint a dedicated commission for collecting empirical data, based on which the quota would be fixed.

It means no seat is going to be reserved for the OBC community in the upcoming local bodies comprising municipal corporations, municipal councils, zilla parishads, panchayat samiti and gram panchayats at least for this year or until the state government completes the entire process.

The Apex court decision has come at the time when OBCs were already worried about losing a share in their existing 27% reservation in government jobs and education following demands made by the Maratha community to incorporate them in the OBC category as they have lost their reservation benefits following another verdict of the Supreme Court.

Marathas were granted 12% and 13% reservation in government jobs and education, respectively, by enacting the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act in 2018, but the Apex court recently quashed it.

“OBC Jan Morcha held dharna outside around 350 tehsil offices across the state and also handed over a charter of demands to tehsildars,” said Chandrakant Bavkar, executive president, Jan OBC Morcha. “The outfit has already sent around 275,000 mails to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, OBC welfare minister Vijay Wadettiwar and social justice minister Dhananjay Munde, requesting them to make attempts to restore the reservation,” he added.

The outfits are also planning to hold protests such as human chain, raasta roko and morcha in the coming days if the state fails to proceed on their demands, Bavkar said.

State chief secretary Sitaram Kunte, on the behalf of the government, on Thursday wrote a letter to the state election commission with a request to postpone the bypolls as it is not an appropriate time, considering the Covid-19 pandemic and fear of rise in cases owing to Delta plus variants, officials said. “The letter states that it would be difficult for them to provide manpower as the state machinery is busy in handling pandemic and monsoon preparedness,” said a senior official privy to the development.

In response, state election commissioner UPS Madan said they will not be able to postpone the by-elections. “The Supreme Court in its order directed the state election commission to hold bypolls on the seats vacated due to its order, thus we are following the Apex court’s directives. We are not in a position to postpone them, until and unless the court asks us to do so,” Madan told HT.

The state government is further trying to persuade the community by declaring preventive measures such as filing a revision petition before the Apex court and setting up a dedicated commission for collecting empirical data.

On the other hand, the Opposition is looking at it as an opportunity to create more trouble for the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra Vikar Aghadi (MVA) government, which is already in a damage control mode after the Supreme Court quashed reservation for Maratha community.

BJP national secretary Pankaja Munde, while interacting with media persons after a state executive committee meeting held on Thursday, said, “We have decided to hold chakka jam andolan at 1,000 places across the state. We also want the bypolls to be cancelled. The state government should intervene and ask the election commission to postpone them. We will also be challenging it in the court.”

Leader of Opposition and former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said they would have collected empirical data in four months. “If we were in power, I would have ensured that the process of collecting empirical data is completed in four months. If you can’t do it, tell us we can do it in four months,” Fadnavis said.

NCP leader and minister Chhagan Bhujbal said the Centre should provide them with empirical data. “If the Centre provides us with empirical data, the issue will be resolved in only four days but the Centre is not doing so,” he said and asked opposition leaders to bring empirical data from the Centre and take the credit for saving OBC reservation.