The NCP is bullish about Local Body Elections with OBC quotas, while the BJP plans a nationwide agitation

The verdict came a day after the Maharashtra State Election Commission issued the timetable for drawing lottery for reservations in 14 municipal corporations excluding Other Backward Classes (OBCs). On Wednesday, NCP's OBC cell met to consider the organization's next steps. NCP thinks that the Supreme Court's recent order permitting Madhya Pradesh to hold local body elections with OBC quotas will also apply to Maharashtra after the state government presents empirical data on OBCs provided by the dedicated commission.

 

Home Minister and veteran NCP leader Dilip Walse Patil stated that the state government is adamant that OBCs receive political quotas in civic and local authorities and that the administration expects a favourable judgement from the Supreme Court before the election process begins.

 

Dhananjay Munde, the Social Justice Minister, expressed optimism that Maharashtra will have justice along the lines of Madhya Pradesh, where the Supreme Court enabled it to hold local body elections with OBC quotas. He went after the BJP, stating that if the saffron party had taken moves to give OBCs reservation during its five-year rule, the state's 12 crore people would have trusted it.

 

Munde alleged that when the judicial battle on this subject began, the BJP-led government failed badly to defend the OBC reservation. "After the Maha Vikas Aghadi administration took office, the Supreme Court abolished the OBC quota in civic and local governments, and the government is carrying out the Supreme Court's judgement, including the completion of the triple test. The BJP government neither compiled empirical data on OBCs nor obtained a report from the specialised commission. Now, the MVA administration is attempting to reinstate the OBC quota in civic and local authorities," he said.

 

Devendra Fadnavis, the Leader of the Opposition, has said that the BJP will start a state-wide agitation demanding the restoration of OBC quotas in civic and local authorities, as well as a reduction in VAT on fuel and diesel. Fadnavis stated once more that the MVA administration is a slayer of OBC quotas.

 

 

"I definitely believe there is a wider design not to restore OBC quotas in civic and local governments in Maharashtra," Fadnavis stated at the party's state executive meeting. Part of the conspiracy developed within the MVA is a lack of political will to restore the OBC reservation. Otherwise, why did the MVA government fail to finish the triple test in the last two years?"

 

 

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