Maharashtra: Maratha reservation demand has divided state cabinet and NDA

The first sign of division within the NDA and cabinet became evident last week when minister and senior NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal came out in the open and warned the state government that the OBC quota should not be tampered with while extending reservation to the Maratha community.

Speaking at a public meeting in Jalna district, Bhujbal said that if the state government tried to give reservation to the Maratha community from the share of OBCs, SCs and STs, it may lead to face-offs between different communities in the state. “Every party talks about the welfare of the OBCs, but nobody is working for it. The BJP, which gets substantial votes from the OBCs, should speak out about what they will do when the OBC quota is under threat,” thundered Bhujbal at the meeting.

Senior ministers belonging to the OBC community have joined hands with Opposition leaders, including the Leader of the Opposition, to oppose the NDA government in the state. This became evident when the Leader of the Opposition, Vijay Wadettiwar, was also present on the dais with Bhujbal at the public meeting. The coming together of OBC leaders from the government and Opposition parties has created a bigger challenge for the Maharashtra government.

"We are not against the reservation for the Maratha community. We want the state government to find a solution to the issue. We have only asked the state government that the Maratha should not get the reservation out of the OBC quota. The state government should find a different way to extend reservation to the Maratha community,” Mahadev Jankar, former Maharashtra minister and Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP) leader, told The Federal. Jankar, who belongs to the Dhangar community (OBC), was among the leaders who had organised the public meeting to mobilise the OBC community against any division in their quota.

“Bhujbal has taken a stand against the wishes of the state government. It takes a lot of strength for the NDA leaders to go against their government for the sake of their community,” said Jankar.

Bhujbal has also advocated the need for the caste census in Maharashtra. “All political parties have agreed to conduct a caste census. If everyone agrees, then what is the problem,” he wondered while speaking at the public meeting.

Bhujbal’s statement brings to the fore another problem in the NDA, as both allies of the ruling BJP in the state, NCP led by Ajit Pawar and Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, have demanded that there be a caste-based census or survey in the state. The division over the issue has reached such a stage that Chief Minister Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar have personally reached out to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to understand how the Bihar government conducted a caste-based survey earlier this year. They have requested the Bihar government to share its experiences while conducting a caste survey and also the methodology used by them.

“A caste-based survey is the solution to all the problems. Since the BJP is keen to facilitate reservation to the Maratha community, it should conduct a caste survey in the state and extend reservation based on the percentage of the population. Nobody will have a problem if this happens. The OBCs are a majority in the state. We will get the biggest chunk of quota if a caste-based survey takes place in Maharashtra,” said Jankar.

Apart from the consolidation of OBC leaders across party lines, the other challenge for the BJP leadership at the state and the national level is that the issue of Maratha reservation has come to haunt them just before the Lok Sabha elections, which are expected to take place in April-May next year. With less than five months left for the general elections, BJP will try to win over both the Maratha and OBC communities to defeat the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance comprising Congress, Sharad Pawar’s NCP and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena.

“The BJP needs to deftly handle the situation, as both Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar are Maratha leaders. The party will have to carefully plan its social engineering to defeat the Opposition alliance in the Lok Sabha polls,” said Jai Mrug, a Mumbai-based political analyst.