Mumbai: Having faced a deafening defeat in the Lok Sabha elections and with the Assembly elections just round the corner, Maharashtra government is taking steps to secure the Marathi vote bank.
Maharashtra Industries Minister Narayan Rane on Friday said that the State was committed to having 20 per cent reservation in government jobs and educational institutions for the native Maratha community and that an announcement regarding this would be made after June 20.
"We will make an announcement after June 20," Industry Minister Narayan Rane, who heads the state government's special committee to study the socio-economic conditions of the Maratha community, informed the Legislative Council today.
The minister was replying to a discussion on the issue in the Upper House. BJP MLC Ashish Shelar said the government should not wait further and make an announcement in the ongoing Legislature session itself.
June 20 is the date when the code of conduct for Legislative Council polls, in force in many parts of the state, ends. The impending announcement of a quota for Marathas is drawing criticism from other backward castes (OBCs), who believe that the dominant community would take away the reservations for the weaker sections.
However, Maratha leaders insist that a majority of the community's members are socially and economically backward, so they require affirmative action in jobs and education and not politics.
The proposed reservation is clearly a 'populist' move ahead of the polls.
Reservations already exist among OBCs for a section of Marathas, known as Kunbis. Maratha Kunbis, who are largely agriculturists, constituted 31.5 per cent of the population. They have a large presence in Vidarbha and Konkan.
Today, a total 356 backward castes get 19 per cent reservations, 51 scheduled castes and tribes get 11 per cent and 11 other castes in the special backward category get 2 per cent.
(With inputs from PTI)
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