Pankaja Munde views OBC quota politics as a way to rehabilitate herself

Pankaja Munde, a former BJP Minister who is angry about the party's treatment of her, has taken up the politically significant topic of restoring the 27 percent quota for Other Backward Classes (OBC) in local authorities and postponing all impending elections till then. It's an opportunity for Pankaja to cement her place as an OBC leader, following in the footsteps of her father, former Union Minister Gopinath Munde. Pankaja, the BJP's national secretary, has led a campaign with party leaders Ashish Shelar and Pravin Darekar to urge that the state's local body elections not be held without an OBC quota.

This is required, she said, because OBC candidates had filed their nominations in the seats earmarked for them rather than the general seats, as a result of the state government's recent ordinance, which was stayed by the Supreme Court. "As a result, OBCs no longer have the ability to file nominations in the open category, which is unfair," she stated. If the elections are held without an OBC quota till empirical data is compiled in accordance with the highest court's direction, then all communities should have an equal chance." She went on to say that the election scheduled for December 21 should be called off because it was started before OBC seats were reserved.

Pankaja, who belongs to the Vanjari community, has conveyed a message to her party and the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi that she is not out yet. She has, interestingly, urged all political parties to take seriously the reintroduction of the OBC quota. Pankaja had previously chastised the MVA administration for failing to provide funding and meet other needs of the State Backward Classes Commission (SCBC), which is in charge of compiling OBC factual data. "It appears that the state government plans to abolish the OBC reservation in local government." "The government's intentions are being questioned by OBCs," she remarked.

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