MP Congress chief Kamal Nath has accused the BJP government of doing grave injustice to the other backward classes (OBC) community in the state, highlighting that OBCs have got only 9-13 per cent quota in the panchayat elections announced on Friday.
On Saturday, Nath tweeted: “In 2022 panchayat polls, the BJP government has given only 11.2 per cent seats of district (zilla) panchayat members to OBC community, only 9.5 pc seats for Janpad panchayat president posts, only 11.5 pc for Janpad panchayat members and only 12.5 pc seats for sarpanchs (head of village panchayats).”
Nath further said: “Not only this, OBCs have got zero posts of district panchayat members in 19 districts, zero posts of Janpad panchayat presidents in 28 districts and zero posts of Janpad panchayat members in 10 districts.”
Earlier in the day, the MP Congress had tweeted to claim that OBC seats had reduced by 60 per cent (compared to previous polls of 2014-15) this time. The official handle of the party claimed that the district panchayat member posts had come down by 61 per cent and in 13 districts, OBC quota had become nil. “There is loss everywhere except Bhopal and Guna districts,” the MP Congress said.
The state government has undertaken a process for fresh reservation of seats as per Supreme Court directives, based on the report of the MP State OBC Welfare Commission. The official statistics on reserved seats is not yet available in the compiled manner. The Congress has been alleging that the fresh process has only reduced the number of reserved seats for the OBC community.
As per the population-based norms, scheduled tribes get 20 per cent and scheduled castes 16 per cent quota in the state, leaving 14 per cent quota for OBCs in keeping with the 50 per cent cap on total quota set by the Supreme Court. However in places where SC/ST population is high, OBCs might not get any quota and in places with less SC/ST population, OBCs can get up to 35 per cent quota, according to the proposal of the OBC welfare commission.
Speaking on behalf of the government, urban development minister Bhupendra Singh said that Congress has been trying to dent the OBC rights in the state. “It was Congress that went to High Court five times and then to Supreme Court. It opposed the OBC quota and this led to the SC scrapping the OBC quota for local bodies’ polls. But our government and the chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan made best efforts and ensured that the local bodies’ polls were held with OBC quota. We have become the first state in the country to do so,” the minister said.
Singh further said “the OBC seats have increased in many places and it has reduced in some places. In urban local bodies, 73 seats are reserved for OBCs now for Nagar Parishad (municipal council) presidents, which is same as earlier, for Nagar Palika (municipality) presidents, the OBC seats have increased from 25 to 28 while in Nagar Nigams (municipal corporations), four seats are still reserved for OBCs.” He however did not give any statistics for the reserved seats in panchayat polls.
Meanwhile, the minister also indicated that the urban local bodies’ polls might be held immediately after the panchayat polls (to be held in June-July) and the process might be finished by August first week.