Mumbai: The Devendra Fadnavis-led government in Maharashtra passed the Maratha Reservation Bill on Sunday. The report and bill pertaining to the Maratha reservation will likely be tabled during the Winter Session of the Legislative Assembly.
The Maharashtra government’s nod on the quota for Marathas comes months after massive protests by members of the community demanding reservation in education and jobs, with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led cabinet’s move being regarded as a potential game-changer ahead of the state assembly elections next year.
Maharashtra will create a new category called SEBC (socially and economically backward) in order to give reservation to Marathas, as per the recommendation of the Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission, which submitted its report in the matter to Chief Secretary DK Jain on Thursday. The government has taken the decision to create the new category for Marathas citing 'extraordinary circumstance' so that rights of neither Other Backward Classes (OBCs) nor Marathas are affected, sources said. Reservation path for Marathas cleared? Maharashtra commission concludes the community is ‘backward’
The state government said that under certain provisions of Article 15 of the Constitution, reservation can be provided over and above the prescribed 50%, according to the Supreme Court ruling itself. However, CM Fadnavis added that it was tough to say if communities other than Marathas could be included in SEBC in the future or not, Times Now reported.
In the report submitted by the Commission to the government, it is believed that the Commission recommended that based on the 25 parameters it had set for the study, the community can be regarded as "backward." The Commission had been tasked to submit a report on the social and economic conditions of the Marathas.
The panel, which was headed by Justice N G Gaikwad (retired), had evaluated the socio-economic status of around 43,000 families and had studied almost 2 lakh memorandums submitted to it, apart from going through empirical data on the social financial and educational backwardness of the Maratha community.
The Maharashtra Assembly is set to meet for the two-week Winter Session in Mumbai starting November 19.