Nationalist Congress Party (SP) chief Sharad Pawar on Monday lobbed the ball into the NDA government’s court on the contentious reservations issue, by saying that if the Centre chose to remove the 50 per cent ceiling on reservations, all political parties in Maharashtra would support the Modi-led dispensation.
A day after pro-quota activists blocked his convoy in Solapur district in western Maharashtra and demanded to know his stand on Maratha reservations, Sharad Pawar asked chief minister Eknath Shinde to convene an all-Party meeting to decide on the way forward to find solution to the vexed reservation issue
“The judiciary has put a 50 percent restriction on reservations in the country, but if there’s a problem then all parties in the state should come together and insist the Centre remove it. The Centre has the power to remove the 50 per cent ceiling on reservations. If the Centre decides to increase the reservation cap beyond 50 per cent, we fully back such a decision,” Pawar said.
