BJP, Cong to agitate today in Maharashtra for OBC quota
Maharashtra will witness state-wide protests on Saturday over the issue of reservation for Other Backward Classes’ (OBC). While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will stage ‘chakka jam’ (road blockade) and ‘jail bharo’ protests at various places, demanding the restoration of the 27% political reservation for the community, the Congress has declared to hold an agitation against the BJP-led Central government, holding it responsible for the quashing of the quota for the community in the Supreme Court. The party said that the Centre is not providing the census data, which led to the situation.
OBCs are on the verge of losing their political reservation in local bodies across Maharashtra as it was quashed by the Apex court last month. The court has ruled that reservation in favour of the OBC community in local bodies should not result in exceeding the 50% cap in quota determined by it.
It has also directed the state to appoint a dedicated commission for collecting empirical data, based on which, the reservation quota of the community be fixed. It means that no seat will 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 OBC community lost the reservation owing to the negligence of the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA (Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi) government. BJP has decided to protest against this government. Around 100,000 workers will hold the ‘jail bharo’ andolan in the state on June 26,” said state BJP chief Chandrakant Patil.
Party’s national secretary Pankaja Munde said, “We will be holding ‘chakka jam’ at around 1,000 places on Saturday. The MVA government is misleading the people. The Centre has no role to play in this matter. They [MVA government] are dragging the Centre for political reasons.”
To counter the claim, Congress’ state unit released a letter by BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis during his term as chief minister to Rajiv Kumar, the then vice-chairman of NITI Aayog, asking him to direct officials to provide district-level data of Maharashtra with geographical identification particulars, caste category and caste names. The letter was sent on August 1, 2019. “The target of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), BJP’s ideological front, is to abolish reservations, and the Narendra Modi-led Centre is working on the same lines. Fadnavis had sought the empirical data, which was denied by the Centre. We will hold an agitation against BJP’s anti-OBC policy on Saturday,” said state Congress chief Nana Patole.
