Mumbai: The issue of political reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) in local body polls became a political flashpoint on Wednesday as the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took out a rally to protest against the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government’s “deception” about restoring reservation, even as Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar said that the only way forward was if the Centre conducted a nation-wide caste census to enumerate OBC communities, failing which his party members would “take to the streets”. Shortly afterwards, both the Congress and the Shiv Sena, the two other ruling coalition partners of the NCP, came out in support of Pawar’s demand.
In March 2021, the Supreme Court scrapped the 27% political reservation available to OBC communities in local bodies and asked the Maharashtra government to conduct a “fresh and rigorous” empirical survey on the basis of which reservation could be decided. The state government appointed a dedicated commission, led by former chief secretary Jayant Banthia, in March, to conduct an inquiry into the political backwardness of OBC communities; the commission is expected to submit its report next month.
The issue of reservation is significant for all political parties as a slew of local body polls, including the municipal corporations of Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur, as well as 25 district councils, 285 panchayat samitis, 210 nagar panchayats, and more than 2,000 gram panchayats are slated in the coming months.
“People raise doubts over the size of the OBC population. The Central government should conduct a caste census for the OBC communities. Let’s do this to end the issue once and for all and let the country know the actual population of OBC communities, and based on that, reservation can be accorded. The demand is to give justice to the community as census is the only way to determine their reservation quota,” Pawar said at a state-wide convention of the NCP’s OBC cell held at YB Chavan Centre, Nariman Point on Wednesday.
Around the same time, the BJP’s OBC cell held a protest march from the party’s Nariman Point office to Mantralaya, the state headquarters. “The Shiv Sena-led MVA government has deceived the OBCs in the state over protecting their political quota in the local body polls. The MVA government first did nothing and ended up losing the political quota case in the Supreme Court,” Maharashtra BJP president Chandrakant Patil, who led the march, said.
Pawar said that the central government should initiate conducting the caste-based census and resolve the issue of OBC population in the country forever. Pawar said that the party, which is a coalition with the Shiv Sena and the Congress, is ready to protest, as they believed that the BJP-led central government would not conduct such a census.
The Centre conducted a Socio Economic and Caste Census in 2011, but told the Supreme Court last September that it was “unusable” for official purposes” because of “mistakes and inaccuracies”.
Reacting to Pawar’s demand, former finance minister and senior BJP leader Sudhir Mungantiwar, who was also part of Wednesday’s protest march, said that the MVA government had failed in providing reservation to OBC communities and was trying to divert the issue by raising a demand for caste-based census. “The demand for a caste-based census was first raised by the late BJP leader Gopinath Munde, when Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was in power at the Centre and the then prime minister Manmohan Singh said that there was no such provision in the Constitution. A nation-wide OBC census is not a simple matter, as there are many castes that are in the OBC category in one state but are part of another category in another state. The government should concentrate on collating empirical data.”
State Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe said that the Congress supported the NCP’s demand. “State Congress president Nana Patole moved a resolution for the same while holding he was Speaker in the state assembly. Political reservation is necessary for the upliftment of the OBC community and a caste-based census is the only solution to the problem.”
Shiv Sena too supported the demand saying that the Centre should come forward to resolve the issue. “If a major section of society is deprived of reservation, then it is an injustice. The Centre should resolve this by conducting a census instead of shifting the responsibility to states. In fact, they have socio-economic caste census but are not ready to share with the states by giving vague reasons,” Vinayak Raut, Shiv Sena member of Parliament said.
The NCP chief said that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fount of the BJP, was opposed to such a census. “I believe those in power won’t conduct such a census… Bhaiyyaji Joshi, Sarkaryawah of RSS, once said that a census is not acceptable to him because it will have a bad impact on (social) equality and create unrest. If truth can create unrest, then I’m ready to create the unrest,” Pawar said. “We will come together and hit the streets, if required,” he added.
Pawar further said that the BJP had no right to question the MVA’s intention as they did nothing while being in power for five years in Maharashtra between 2014 and 2019 and eight years at the Centre. “Were they sleeping for all these years? They (BJP) don’t want to give reservation to the OBC community and are interested only in making allegations (for political gains),” he said, lashing out at the opposition party.
Other regional leaders such as Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar have also demanded a caste-based census.
