“While taking oath as a minister or as the chief minister, you are supposed to be fair to everyone. You are supposed to follow the Constitution. However, the state and Centre are not doing that. The high court had also partially ruled in favour of the quota. The government is doing this out of vengeance,” said Congress leader Nana Patole.
Just before the Maharashtra assembly polls in 2014, the then Congress and NCP government had issued an ordinance giving 16% quota to Marathas as well as giving 5% quota to Muslims under the Special Backward Class category. However, the policy was challenged in the Bombay High Court which struck down the Maratha quota but partially upheld the Muslim reservation in educational institutions. The BJP and Shiv Sena government, that came to power later and was opposed to the Muslim quota, allowed the ordinance to lapse as they did not pass a law in the assembly within six months of the ordinance being passed.
While Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has been pursuing quota demand for the Maratha community, he has made it clear that Muslims cannot be given reservation as under the Constitution reservation cannot be given on religious basis.
While the state government’s move to issue a GR cancelling its 2014 GR was just procedural according to the government, the Nationalist Congress Party (SP) has also opposed the move. Significantly, the Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray Shiv Sena, which of late has been giving overtures to the minority community, has not taken a stand on the issue. UBT Sena MP, Sanjay Raut said, “There is no point in discussing this issue outside. This issue will be raised in the upcoming assembly session.”
