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Mumbai: Senior NCP leader and Maharashtra minister Chhagan Bhujbal on Wednesday said the Supreme Court order on Other Backward Classes (OBC) quota is a setback for the state government and it should do everything it can to save the community’s reservation. Can do.
State Congress President Nana Patole also said that the state government should immediately collect data related to OBCs and ensure that their political reservation is maintained.
The NCP and Congress share power in the Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra government.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a petition filed by the Maharashtra government directing the Center and other authorities to disclose the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 raw caste data of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the state. was demanded to be given. The top court, while dismissing the petition, said that the state is free to adopt other remedies available under the law.
The Center had told the court that the SECC 2011 data was “absolutely unreliable” as it was found to have several flaws. It had also told the Supreme Court that SECC 2011 is “not” an OBC data and was not made public as it was found to be “wrong” and “bound to mislead”.
Speaking to reporters here, Bhujbal said that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government sought postponement of the local body elections, but the central government opposed the plea.
“The Center told the apex court that the empirical data for the OBC census was not collected and cannot be given to the states. The next hearing will be held in January, during which the court will take information about the data collected by the Backward Classes Commission. The state government should ensure that the political reservation of OBCs is maintained.
“If there was no empirical data, what did Devendra Fadnavis ask from the Center when he was chief minister?” Bhujbal asked, and said that he would participate in all the protests organized in the state for the purpose of protecting the OBC quota.
Patole said the state government should immediately take up the data collection of OBCs and ensure that political reservations are maintained.
Taking a jibe at the BJP, Patole said that the central government has deliberately not shared the empirical data with the state.
“If the empirical data with the Center was faulty, why did former CM Devendra Fadnavis and the then Rural Development Minister Pankaja Munde, during their tenure, write to the Center demanding that the data be shared with the state government?” He asked.
Patole also accused the central government of not being in favor of the OBC census.
On Wednesday, on a separate petition by the Maharashtra government, the Supreme Court directed the State Election Commission (SEC) to notify 27 per cent seats in local bodies, which were reserved as general category, to facilitate the election process. May be be carried forward.
On December 6, the top court had stayed the local body elections in the seats reserved for OBCs in the state till further orders and made it clear that the election process for other seats would continue. But in its Wednesday order, it said there was no reason to modify the December 6 order and said the hiatus cannot be continued indefinitely.
In March this year, the apex court had said that reservation in favor of OBCs in local bodies in Maharashtra cannot exceed 50 per cent of the total number of seats reserved for SCs, STs and OBCs.
Read also: Fadnavis calls it ‘a slap to MVA’ as BJP wins 4 Maharashtra LC seats and tightens grip on Nagpur
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