In an effort to find a way out of an explosive situation that has arisen out of the recent Maratha agitation demanding reservations in jobs and education, Maharashtra’s beleaguered Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has convened an all-party meeting at the Vidhan Bhavan here on Saturday.
Ahead of Saturday’s all-party meeting, senior State Minister Chandrakant Patil, who incidentally the number-two man in the Government, met Justice (retired) MG Gaikwad, the head of Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission (MSBCC) on Friday evening to request the latter to expedite submission of its report on the socio-economic status of the Maratha community to the Bombay High Court.
The Devendra Fadnavis dispensation is looking at short-term and long-term measures to resolve the Maratha reservation crisis. Pending the submission of the MSBCC report to the high court, the State Government examining as to whether it can treat Marathas as reserved category in the impending drive to recruit as many as 72,000 people for its jobs.
“We need to take the Opposition on board before we can take such a major decision in the absence of a reserved quota for the Marathas at this juncture. If we implement this short-term measure that we are planning without political consensus may get entangled into a web of litigation. That’s why we are moving cautiously,” a senior BJP leader said.
As a precursor to Saturday’s meeting, Fadnavis on Thursday confabulated with former chief minister and Rajya Sabha member Narayan Rane, who headed a special committee appointed by the previous government ahead of the 2014 State Assembly to study the socio-economic conditions of the Maratha community. The Rane-headed committee had recommended 20 per cent reservations to Marathas.
The Maratha reservation should be seen in the backdrop of a bunch of PIls on the Maratha and Muslim reservation issue pending before the Bombay High Court.
It may be recalled that on November 14, 2014, the Bombay High Court had stayed an ordinance promulgated by the previous Congress-led DF government ahead of the October 2014 State Assembly polls extending 16 per cent reservations to Marathas and five per cent to Muslims, saying that they were not in conformity with the law laid down by the Supreme Court in three cases.
While it had stayed 16 per cent reservations granted to Marathas through an ordinance dated July 9, 2014 and Government Resolution dated July 15, 2014, the high court also stayed the state government’s decision to provide five per cent reservation to Muslims in government jobs.
However, a HC bench, headed by the then Chief Justice Mohit Shah, allowed reservations to Muslims in educational institutions, on the ground at that their educational achievements were “abysmally low” and that there was a need to draw them into the “mainstream of secular education”.