The State government of Maharashtra has finally resolved the issue of Maratha reservation which gave them sleepless nights for the past several months. The government, in a special Assembly session, passed the bill under which the Maratha community will get a 10% reservation in education and government jobs. The bill now will be tabled in the Legislative Council for assent, following which it will become a law after the Governor’s signature. However, the preparations to file petitions against the bill in the Supreme Court have already begun because the added 10% of reservations will take the total number of reservations percentage to 62% in the State. This violates the Apex court’s limit of 50%, and so the Opposition has accused the government of fooling the
Maratha community as the top court will not uphold the reservation.
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Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde claimed that there are already more than 50% reservations in 22 states and the reservations granted in Maharashtra have been done after studying its potential sustenance in the court. However, in that case, then why did the government not do it earlier? Why did the Maratha community members have to take out multiple morchas? Why did the then Fadnavis-Thackeray government not take this step? Why was the bill which was upheld in the High Court struck down by the Supreme Court? Why did the movement’s leader Manoj Jarange Patil have to sit on a hunger strike for so many days? Why did he have to hold several state-wide public meetings which witnessed the attendance of lakhs of community members? The recent developments pertaining to the reservations issue give rise to these questions, which is why the Shinde-Fadnavis-Pawar government is accused of passing the bill by keeping the upcoming general elections in mind.
Congress’ Prithviraj Chavan has stated that there is no clarity over how the bill will be upheld in the Supreme Court now, when in 2018 it was not. In fact, Maratha leader Jarange Patil himself accused the government of fooling the Maratha community for passing such a bill which will not hold in the Supreme Court, and he has continued with his hunger strike to attain his original demands. On the other hand, the government’s own minister and OBC leader Chagan Bhujbal has cornered the government by asking what would be the need of Kunbi certificates to Marathas since the new law identifies the Maratha community as an independent category. This has made the issue even more interesting since the State government had decided to grant Kunbi certificates to those registered as Marathas.
Now, the government has two challenges ahead of it. One, it will have to defend the new bill in the top court, and secondly, the government will have to withdraw the GR related to granting Kunbi certificates to the Marathas. Otherwise, this will lead to clashes between the Maratha and OBC communities. Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has claimed that they have fixed the errors pointed out by the Supreme Court, while it had struck down the reservation which was granted during Fadnavis’ previous tenure as chief minister. According to him, Maratha Reservation and State Backward Classes Commission visited around 2.5 crore houses of Marathas to come up with the report submitted to the government. However, it is unclear if the Commission has observed whether or not the Maratha community is socially and educationally backward, since that is the very first criteria required to grant reservation to the respective community. Therefore it is possible that the government has reduced the percentage to 10 from the previous 16%.
If the Supreme Court upholds the law, then in a way, it would be considered that 62% reservations are acceptable. This could lead to other States demanding more reservations within their geographical boundaries. It is possible that the matter might remain pending in the Apex court for a while since the code of conduct for the Lok Sabha polls might be implemented anytime soon. Therefore, there is a possibility that election results will be declared before the matter is heard in the court. By passing the Maratha reservation bill, the Maharashtra government has tried to hold back the Maratha community’s rage at least until the Lok Sabha elections.
