Nagpur: As the political debate over OBC political reservation rages on across the state, senior leaders belonging to the community will hold a brainstorming session at Lonavla on June 26-27 to chart future strategy.
Rashtriya OBC Mahasangh president Baban Taywade said the crucial meet will have representation from across political parties and organizations.
On Thursday, OBC leaders in every district will send a letter to the central and state governments through the district collector to press for their demand for having a caste-based census and ensure political reservation.
Taywade said, “It’s been said that the Supreme Court has quashed OBC political reservation, but I believe that’s a wrong interpretation of the highest court actually.
The apex court said that reservation cannot cross 50% limit, so now it is up to the state and Centre to ensure that the OBC community gets justice.” The senior leader added that differentiation has to be made between types of reservation.
“The limit on reservation is specific to jobs and education.
We also have the issue of political reservation, to which the judgment has been applied.
The demand for empirical data on OBC population has to be addressed either by the central or the state government,” said Taywade.
He asserted that the state and Centre must not play blame game.
“Collecting data on OBC population can be done by either one of them., So if the Centre is not going ahead with a caste-based census, then the state can do it,” said Taywade.
While the political reservation issue is currently at the forefront, Taywade said in no way it should be construed that other issues have been put on the backburner.
“We have many demands which need to be addressed by the government.
The creamy layer limit of Rs8 lakh per annum needs to be scrapped, reservation for students need to be increased etc,” said Taywade.
Thursday’s ‘memorandum’ will be a prelude to the Lonavala meet, said Taywade.
“We are making representation to both central and state governments.
If they do not agree to our demands, then the next course of action will be decided at Lonavala,” said Taywade.
When asked who are the prominent OBC leaders that will be part of the Lonavala meet, Taywade said delegates will be from a wide political spectrum.
“Chhagan Bhujbal, Nana Patole, Vijay Wadettiwar, Eknath Khadse, Pankaja Munde, Manikrao Thakre, Sunil Kedar, Chandrashekhar Bawankule and many other legislators will be present.
Around 300 senior leaders from the community shall be present at Lonavala,” he added.