The Madhya Pradesh government as well as the Union government will approach the Supreme Court against a two-member bench order staying the panchayat polls on seats reserved for Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced this in the MP Assembly on Tuesday while replying to discussions on an adjournment motion moved on the issue by the opposition Congress. Later, the chief minister informed about the decision also through his official social media account.
“We have not made any amendments to the Panchayati Raj Act. We are committed to conduct the panchayat polls with OBC reservation. The Union government is going to the (Supreme) Court with us. We will never allow any injustice with the rights of backward classes or any other section,” he tweeted.
Sources said that the Union government is likely to become a party to the proposed petition of the MP government in the Supreme Court as the OBC quota order is an inter-state issue and the SC had, in an earlier order, stayed 27 per cent OBC reservation in local bodies' polls in Maharashtra.
Leader of opposition and ex-chief minister Kamal Nath tweeted to express happiness that the government had accepted the Congress's demand to approach the Supreme Court. He reiterated that the Congress was with the government in this decision and the party has been calling for this step right from the time the stay order was issued. “We are confident that now panchayat elections will be held with OBC reservation. This is the victory of OBC people and their struggle. I want to give credit for this win to the OBC communities and also thank the government for accepting our demand. This is victory of truth,” Nath tweeted.
Meanwhile, Urban Development Minister Bhupendra Singh has said that the state government will 'decide in a day or two' about the fate of the ongoing panchayat poll process. The nomination filing process for the first two phases of polls was completed on December 20. The three-phase polls are scheduled for January 6 and 28 and February 16.
The State Election Commission had decided to go ahead with the panchayat polls process sans OBC reserved seats following the stay order on December 17. However, since the SC has ordered that the results of entire elections including those seats converted from OBC to general category, should be declared together, the Commission on December 18 asked the state government to take action for re-notification of seats (OBC to general) and inform the Commission about the same in seven days so that poll process on these seats could also be taken up.
A two-member bench of justices A.M. Khanwilkar and C.T. Ravikumar had stayed the panchayat elections on OBC reserved seats in Madhya Pradesh by extending a decision given in a case from Maharashtra. The court had asked the state government and the Election Commission to ensure that the seats that overshot the OBC quota according to constitutional norms were re-notified as general and only then go ahead with the polls on these seats.
However, politics has been raging on the issue for the past five days with the Congress and the BJP engaging in a blame game over the issue. There has been a general call for not conducting the panchayat elections without resolving the OBC quota issue. The blame game on Tuesday reached the State Assembly where an adjournment motion by the Congress was accepted. The members of treasury bench and opposition sparred over the reason for the SC stay and blamed each other for not taking enough measures before the SC to avoid the decision. Former ministers Tarun Bhanot and Kamleshwar Patel of Congress and minister Bhupendra Singh were among the main speakers before Kamal Nath took over.
Nath underlined the fact that it was the Congress that implemented the 27 per cent reservation of OBCs in government jobs, first in 2003 and then in 2019. He said that constant lackadaisical attitude of successive BJP governments in court caused stay on this decision too. Even in the matter of panchayat polls, the government and the Election Commission advocates failed to respond properly when the apex court issued the stay order, Nath said. He also took up the issue of senior advocate and Rajya Sabha member Vivek Tankha being wrongly blamed for the SC stay and underlined that the petition Tankha was appearing for pertained to rotation and delimitation in panchayat elections.
CM Chouhan then came up with a long reply, blaming the Congress for making superfluous moves for OBC reservation and then not following them up. He also detailed the steps taken by the BJP government for welfare of OBC people including steps for scholarships and job-oriented training and reiterated that the government was committed to give a 27 per cent job quota to the communities in all cases except those stayed by the High Court. He also mentioned that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had taken the decision of giving a 27 per cent quota to OBC aspirants in NEET (entrance test for medical courses).