Mumbai: Amid the burning reservation issue in Maharashtra, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi founder Prakash Ambedkar has appealed to people to get elected 100 MLAs from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and save the existing format of reservation.
Lawyer-politician Ambedkar, a two-time Lok Sabha MP from Akola and one-term Rajya Sabha MP, is the grandson of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, the chief architect of Constitution of India.
Ambedkar has launched a campaign invoking - ‘Jai Phule-Jai Shahu-Jai Bhim' - which aims to protect the reservation of Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and OBCs.
The statement of Ambedkar assumes significance in the wake of Shivba Sanghatana founder and Maratha reservation campaigner Manoj Jarange-Patil’s demand to issue Kunbi certificates so that they can seek reservation as OBCs and implementation of the notification on sage-soyare, a Marathi term for ‘relatives from the family tree’.
However, the state’s OBC leadership is up in arms against it and to ensure that does not happen OBC Sangharsh Sena founder Laxman Hake is campaigning across the state.
“To save reservation (of the OBCs) you need to elect 100 OBC MLAs,” said Ambedkar in the run up to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections.
Of the total 52 per cent reservation in the state, SCs and STs account for 13 and 7 per cent, respectively, OBCs get 19 per cent, Denotified Tribes (A) 3 per cent, Nomadic Tribes (B) 2.5 per cent. Nomadic Tribes (C) 3.5 per cent, Nomadic Tribes (D) 2 per cent and Special Backward Category 2 per cent.
This is two per cent higher than the Supreme Court cap of 50 per cent reservation. In addition, the 10 per cent quota on economically weaker sections is also applicable though this has now been challenged in the Bombay High Court.
The Shinde-government opened two more routes: either a 10 per cent quota under the Maharashtra State Reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes or as Kunbis, a sub-caste of the Maratha, covered under the OBCs category. The demand for sage-soyare has complicated the issue further.
"OBCs will need the votes of SCs, STs if they want to maintain OBC reservation. And we would do this through the VBA,” said Ambedkar.