As SC maintains OBC reservation in Panchayat polls, BJP and Congress attack Madhya Pradesh on each other

Dominant force in all polls with a 50% share of the state’s population, CBOs are back at the head of political space in Madhya Pradesh compared to Panchayat polls, weeks after that the issue of the 27% CBO quota landed in the High Court.

Even three days have passed since the Supreme Court suspended the OBC quota for panchayat polls in Madhya Pradesh, but nothing concrete has emerged from the state government side which is required to provide a response to the State Election Commission on the issue of the OBC reservation by Dec. 25.

As the BJP and Congress accuse each other of being anti-OBC, former chief minister Uma Bharti also jumped into the fray on Monday, expressing her displeasure at the OBCs almost excluded from the reservation scenario in the panchayat polls.

The legal stay on the CBO reservation in panchayat polls is cause for concern, Bharti tweeted, saying in the second tweet that she spoke to CM Shivraj on Monday morning, letting her know that the panchayat polls without booking for CBOs would be an injustice to the 70% of the population. .

Both Bharti and Chouhan welcome this category which is of crucial importance in local body polls as well as in assembly polls in 2023.

Three-phase panchayat polls are slated for the state on February 6, 28 and 16 next year, as recently announced by the SEC.

Early in the day, as the winter session of the Assembly of Deputies began, the BJP and Congress attacked each other for being responsible for the situation.

Speaking to reporters, Home Secretary Narottam Mishra blamed the Congress party for the mess saying he had not gone to SC then, the situation would not have happened. This exposed the double standards of the Congress party which talks about the OBC quota and opposes the community inside the tribunal.

Opposition leader Kamal Nath said: “No rotation, no demarcation and no reservation, this is the Bharatiya Janata Party.” Nothing is under the rug and their inner voice has been exposed, added the top leader who seemed to appreciate the mess the Shivraj government has landed on the CBO issue.

Kunal Chauhdary, Congressman speaking to the media inside the assembly media room, attempted to point out the contradictions in the caste-based booking percentage as a proportion of the population of various categories. A population of 16% SC has 15% reservation, 21% of ST have 20% reservation, while 13% of generals also have 10% reservation under SAP, but policies have been set for OBC with 14% reservation against 54% of the population.

And when the 27% quota was introduced (then Kamal Nath’s government), Shivraj’s government did not pursue the matter properly within the HC. “The reservation issue was challenged in court after the BJP government instead of sticking to the 2019 rotation and the reservation opted to hold the panchayat polls in accordance with the 2014 rules,” Chaudhary said.

SEC agents have unofficially said that in the current arrangement, around 60% of the seats are reserved for various categories in panchayat polls that make a total reservation exceeding the constitutional limit of 50%. SC had previously suspended the OBC reservation in the polls of local Maharashtra bodies on similar lines and also cited the Maharashtra judgment in the case of MP.

SC stay

With just a few weeks remaining for the first phase of the panchayat ballot, the SC had, on December 18, maintained the ballot in all seats reserved for the CBO and asked the SEC to re-notify those seats in the general category. , which meant that there wouldn’t be any reservations for 54% of the OBC population in the panchayat polls this time around.

Earlier in Congress Rajya Sabha, MP Vivek Tankha and spokesman Syyed Zafar moved the SC alleging that the MP’s government violated constitutional provisions on rotation and reserve delineation in panchayat polls. By asking the SEC to operate within legal limits, the SC had threatened that the panchayat ballots could be called off in case the legal process was not followed.

Shivraj calls for emergency meeting on issue

CM Shivraj called a high-level meeting in Bhopal on Monday to discuss the matter before a response was sent to the SEC. Attorney General Prashant Singh, Principal Secretary Law Gopal Shrivastava, Interior Minister Narottam Mishra and Urban Administration and Housing Minister Bhupendra Singh are expected to attend the meeting.

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