State may bring in bill to ensure OBC quota

The state cabinet, which met late Friday evening, took the decision to introduce a bill, which will empower the state to complete all pre-poll processes of formation and delimitation of wards

Mumbai: A day after the Supreme Court rejected the Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission’s interim report recommending Other Backward Class (OBC) reservation in local body elections, the state government discussed the option of introducing a bill to ensure quota in the upcoming local body polls.

Senior OBC leader Chhagan Bhujbal said the opposition BJP has assured us to cooperate with the government on the issue. (Hindustan Times)

The state cabinet, which met late Friday evening, took the decision to introduce a bill, which will empower the state to complete all pre-poll processes of formation and delimitation of wards. This will also help the state government buy itself time to conduct a fresh empirical survey as mandated by the apex court. At present, this work is undertaken by the State Election Commission (SEC).

“The bills will be introduced to amend the existing laws governing urban and rural local bodies facing the polls. Similar amendments have been made by Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh governments. The opposition BJP has assured us to cooperate with the government on the issue,” food and civil supplies minister and senior OBC leader Chhagan Bhujbal said after the meeting.

“We will bring in a new bill on the lines of Madhya Pradesh government. It is the [state] elections commission’s prerogative when to hold the elections but Madhya Pradesh has taken the powers to decide delimitation and ward formation. We will table the bill on Monday in both Houses. We request the members to pass it unanimously like it was done in the past,” deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar said on Friday during the ongoing budget session.

Madhya Pradesh introduced a similar bill (Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Raj and Gram Swaraj (Amendment Bill in November 2021) after the SC also struck down OBC reservation in the state on account of the absence of empirical data last November.

Pawar, while speaking on the OBC political quota issue in the legislative council, said the matter the government was firm on not holding elections to any local bodies till the 27% quota for OBCs is restored.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is in opposition in the state, announced that it will support the bill when tabled, in the interest of OBC communities.

“Though the state government has failed to collate the empirical data in due time, we will support a bill on the lines of one passed by MP in the interest of OBCs,” leader of opposition and former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said.

However, experts from the law and judiciary department expressed reservations over the postponement.

An SEC official said that it was not possible for the body to postpone the elections following a request by the government. The official said that the SC’s December order clearly stated that the elections process cannot be stalled due to the absence of reservation. The SEC had held elections for 106 nagar panchayats in January following the order. Polls to 14 municipal corporations including in cities like Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Nagpur, as well as 25 district councils, 208 city councils, 14 nagar panchayats and 284 panchayat samitis are due to be held in the next few weeks. If the bill passes, it is expected to delay elections by at least by a few months.

“Anything which is a constitutional obligation is binding on the state government and the SEC. The Constitution mandates for the elections to be conducted after the five-year term is over. The delay in conducting the administrative process cannot be the reason in postponing the elections. In case the process is incomplete, the elections should be conducted with the existing arrangements without waiting for the revision,” constitutional expert Ulhas Bapat said.

“The process of delimitation and formation of wards in many municipal corporations has already been completed. The notification on the final plan of formation of wards is expected to be issued in next one week after which the draw for reservation for Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe and women candidates are expected to be drawn. At this point it is very difficult to stall the process even if the state government passes the bill. It can, however, help the government in delaying the polls in local bodies in rural parts of the state,” an official from the law and judiciary department said requesting anonymity.

The Supreme Court, in March last year, set aside the 27% reservation given to Other Backward Classes (OBC) in rural and urban local government bodies. On Thursday, the SC refused to accept the interim data submitted by the MSBCC and slammed it for its “lack of rationale” and absence of “contemporaneous data”.

The OBC quota issue saw ruckus in both the House of the state legislature. The Council was adjourned over the opposition’s demand to suspend the day’s business and hold a debate on the OBC quota issue, which was denied by the chairman. Opposition legislators raised slogans over the government’s failure to protect the community’s quota, leading to multiple adjournments following which the House was adjourned for the day.

Pawar told the House that there was no negligence on part of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government as it had the best legal teams for the case in the apex court.

“Through the bill, let us restore the quota so that the community is not deprived of the representation. Till then, we will appoint administrators wherever needed at Municipal Corporations and Zilla Parishads. In the meantime, we will prepare the empirical data and present it before the Supreme Court and only then hold elections by giving them representation,” Pawar said.

Pawar said that chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and the cabinet was against holding elections without reservation for OBC communities. He said that nearly 70% of the state’s electorate will vote in various civic polls in the coming months, and lack of representation to the numerically significant and politically important category of communities would be unfair.

“Recently, the 105 Nagar panchayat elections were held where OBCs did not get any representation. In the coming days, elections to about two-thirds of the state’s civic bodies, including several municipal corporations, Zilla Parishad, municipal councils, are due. Nearly 70-75% of the state’s voters would exercise their rights in these polls. Therefore, it is not acceptable to the chief minister and his cabinet colleagues to not give representation to the OBCs in these elections,” Pawar said.

OBC welfare minister Vijay Wadettiwar said that the state will complete the process of compiling the empirical data in four to six months. “It is true that as per the SC ruling the ensuing elections cannot be delayed for more than four to six months, but if we get six months, we will complete the process. Not only Maharashtra, but five or six states including MP, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala are facing a similar issue and none of them have completed the process of empirical data,” he said.

“The Supreme Court asked for the empirical data for providing reservation to the OBC community on December 13, 2019 but the MVA government failed to complete the process in the last over two years. The interim report submitted before the apex court had no signatures and date of the concerned authority. Besides, there was no mention of political data in the interim data with the help of which justification can be made over the necessity of representation of OBCs in the local bodies’ elections,” Fadnavis said.

Bhujbal said it was time to stop the political blame game and for all parties to make a joint effort to resolve the issue. He slammed the Centre and the earlier BJP government for taking no action to protect OBC reservation.

“We raised the demand for empirical data in the Parliament following which its process was started back in 2011. By 2016, the process was completed but the Modi government didn’t share the data with the Maharashtra government despite being sought by the previous (Devendra Fadnavis) government and MVA government. Fadnavis government also made no efforts to save OBC reservation and sought the empirical data (from the Centre) only in the last year (2019) of their tenure,” he said.

Nitin Chaudhari, chief coordinator of Rashtriya OBC Mukti Morcha said that though the state government has announced its intention to bring a bill, the question remained whether it would stand legal scrutiny. “The state government is attempting to buy the time by taking away the SEC’s powers. If [the bill] challenged in the court, the state would not be able to give a reason to delay the process of the delimitation and ward formation. What is applicable in MP cannot be justified in Maharashtra. And even if the state government succeeded in getting additional time, would it be able to complete the process of compiling the empirical data in six months?” he said.