Madhya Pradesh:Curious Case of an Annexure in MP’s OBC Affidavit and Unsavoury Controversy

 Bhopal: An unsavoury controversy triggered by some viral contents of an old commission report on social media has generated heat in the political circles here ahead of the crucial hearing in the case of the Madhya Pradesh government’s move to increase the reservation for the other backward class (OBC) from 14 percent to 27 percent, in the supreme court, scheduled to commence on October eight.

Madhya Pradesh government has issued a strong statement dismissing the viral contents as not of its ‘declared or approved’ policy on the issue of OBC reservation and called it ‘completely false, fabricated and misleading’.

The controversy, although dismissed by the government as factually incorrect, has however brought to focus on the vexed issue of OBC reservation that dogged the Madhya Pradesh government for the past six years.

The previous Kamal Nath government had raised the reservation for the OBC in the educational institutions and recruitments in government services from the existing 14 percent to 27 percent ahead of the May 2019 Lok Sabha polls, triggering a row over the issue.

The decision was later challenged in the Madhya Pradesh high court which had later stayed it.

In February this year, the Madhya Pradesh government moved the supreme court seeking to vacate the stay on the implementation of 27 percent reservation for the OBC in the state, to settle the issue for once and all.

The state government has submitted an 80-page affidavit in the supreme court presenting its legal and fact-based arguments while seeking a 27 percent quota for the OBC.

The state government has submitted the recommendations of various commissions constituted by the state government in the past as annexures to the affidavit.

The controversial viral contents were taken out of the Ramji Mahajan Commission constituted by the then Arjun Singh government in 1980.

The commission had submitted its report in 1983.

It had in its report made some critical observations on the caste system in Hindu society which were made viral on social media to target the Mohan Yadav government.

A government counsel has however defended the state government on the issue arguing that the Ramji Commission report was already submitted in Madhya Pradesh by the then Kamal Nath government in 2019 and it is now resubmitted in the supreme court.

“An unnecessary controversy has been created by some people by spreading different kinds of rumours”, the government counsel said, unwilling to be quoted.

The state government has already clarified that the viral contents are not part of the government affidavit filed in the supreme court.

As per the current provision of reservations in the government services, 20 percent quota has been fixed for scheduled tribes, 16 percent for scheduled castes, 14 percent for the OBC and ten percent Economic Weaker Sections (EWS) of the general category of people.

This comes to 60 percent reservation which already breached the 50 percent quota ceiling.

If the 27 percent reservation for OBC is implemented, the total quota will reach 73 percent.