MP govt, Center to approach court for OBC reservation in Panchayat elections, says CM

Chouhan made the statement in the state Assembly after the Leader of Opposition, Kamal Nath, urged Chouhan to approach the court against the Supreme Court’s decision, setting aside the reservation for OBC in the state, if the apex court’s decision was not acceptable to him.

Nath pointed out that if the BJP-led government approaches the court against the SC’s decision instead of playing blame game, the Congress party will also support them as both the parties were in favour of getting reservation for the OBC community that constitute over 50 per cent of the state’s population.

Chouhan and Nath were arguing over the Supreme Court’s verdict on December 17 in which the apex court stayed the election on seats reserved for the OBC and directed the state election commission to re-notify these as general seats and to go ahead with the elections. The apex court passed the order while hearing an application challenging the Madhya Pradesh High Court order that accepted the application that challenged the validity of the Madhya Pradesh Ordinance No 14/2021 Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Raj and Gram Swaraj (Amendment) Adhiniyam, 2021 related to reservation and delimitation in MP but refused to stay the notified elections to the panchayat polls. The ordinance promulgated on November 21 by the state government annulled the rotation on reservation on the grounds that it was carried out in 2019-2020 and is more than a year old. The rotation delimitation exercise was carried out by the then Congress government led by Kamal Nath while it was in power briefly for 15 months. The panchayat election following the amendment was to be conducted as per the delimitation and rotation exercise carried out in 2014 by the then BJP government.

Various petitions challenging the ordinance were first filed in MP High Court and the matter subsequently reached the apex court. But the apex court’s ruling on December 17, staying the OBC reservation ensued a blame game in the state which reached the Vidhan Sabha on Tuesday when 12 Congress MLAs filed an adjournment motion. Members of both the treasury bench and opposition blamed each other for the stay by SC and not taking enough measures before the SC bench to avoid the stay.

Congress’ Kamleshwar Patel blamed the BJP for failing to strengthen the three tier Panchayat system, while enumerating the work done by various Congress regimes under Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi for assuring OBC reservations. He was supported by senior Congress MLA Tarun Bhanot, Dr Govind Singh and Priyavrath Singh. The issue led to heated argument in the assembly with the Congress MLA being interrupted by BJP’ Vishwas Sarang and Home Minister Narottam Mishra who accused the Congress of harboring anti-OBC sentiments and blamed Congress leader and senior lawyer Vivek Tankha for getting a stay on the OBC reserved seats. The two sides argued before it was decided that the discussion would be taken ahead with leaders of both the benches talking after which Kamal Nath took over.

Nath highlighted that his government in 2019 carried out the delimitation and rotation on panchayat seats to strengthen the Panchayat system. He accused the Shivraj SIngh Chouhan led BJP government for failing to carry out the same delimitation and rotation exercise in the past 1.5 years since they have been in power in the state, if they were dissatisfied with the exercise carried out by the previous Congress government. “I understand it was COVID period but then 28 by-elections were held during the period and now suddenly an ordinance is passed. It is because of this that Vivek Tankha went to court but the argument in SC was only about rotation and delimitation, there were advocates representing the state as well as election commission present during the hearing which was entirely about rotation and delimitation. But my understanding is that since the judge hearing the application was aware of Maharashtra’s case, this case also went in that direction.” Nath accused the BJP government of spreading lies and further pointed out that it is no one’s fault that a stay was given on OBC seats but no objection was raised by the lawyer representing the election commission nor anything was said by those representing Madhya Pradesh state.

Accusing Shivraj Singh Chouhan of playing the blame game without actively trying to find a solution to the problem, Nath said,”If the court’s order was not acceptable to you, your government did not approach the court seeking an amendment. Instead of finding a solution you set out to highlight who went to court how many times. You should have instead said that I don’t agree to this, and we are going to the court to seek a remedy. We would have supported you and gone with you. If both the parties would have gone to the court together, which court would not have denied us relief?”

Responding to Nath, Chouhan thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for giving OBC commission a constitutional status and then accused the Congress government of increasing reservation for OBC to 27 percent in 2019 ahead of Lok Sabha elections but failing to follow through with its decision after the elections. Chouhan further accused the Congress government of getting reservation reduced from 27 percent to 14 percent for OBC candidates in exams conducted by Public Service Commissions. He further pointed out that orders for Higher secondary teachers was on basis of 27 percent reservation for OBC. Similarly, a provision of Rs 138 crore in 2017-18, Rs 217 crores in 2018-19 was made for the education of 33 lakh students from class 6 to 10 falling under OBC category. “Instead of increasing it further, the Congress slashed it down to 190 crores. In many other schemes, we gave a budget of Rs 20 crore sin 2017-18, Rs 69 crores in 2018-19 for employment oriented training to unemployed youth, but you (Congress government) reduced it to only Rs 15 crore,” pointed out Chouhan. Chouhan further pointed out that the ordinance passed by the BJP government was as per the constitution or else it would have been stayed by the High Court or Supreme Court but that did not happen.

Chouhan further accusing Kamal Nath said, “Kamal Nath ji was talking about rotation now , he was saying that he did not oppose OBC reservation , But opposed the rotational reservation. This is against the reservation of OBCs. I am saying that you have opposed rotational reservation. From there this decision has come. When you came out with a sword to cut your hands and your head was cut off, then they say what is our fault now. You were the one who left.”

While Chouhan agreed that not just the Center but the MP government will do its best to ensure panchayat elections are held with OBC reservation. Nath thanked him for paying heed to their demand for the welfare of the OBC community.