Madhya Pradesh government committed to 27% OBC quota, CM Yadav tells delegation

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has said his government is committed to 27 percent reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the state. A delegation of the OBC Mahasabha met Yadav at his residence on Saturday evening and submitted a memorandum listing various demands of the community, a government release said. The CM assured the delegation that rights of the OBC community would be protected, it said. The Centre has approved caste-based census to prepare basic data of all communities. The issue of OBC reservation is pending before the Supreme Court, with regular hearings scheduled to begin from September 23. The government will abide by the court's decision, the release quoted him as saying. CM Yadav has assured that his government is committed to 27 percent reservation, OBC Mahasabha's national core committee member Lokendra Gurjar told PTI . Currently OBCs are getting 14 percent reservation in MP. We want this figure to go up to 27 percent, he said. Gurjar, who is one of the petitioners in the case related to OBC quota being heard by the Supreme Court, was part of a delegation of members of his outfit, other petitioners, lawyers, etc, that met the CM. Earlier on Saturday, a meeting chaired by Advocate General Prashant Singh here resolved that the state government, through Solicitor General and Attorney General along with lawyers proposed by the OBC community, would present the case effectively in the apex court. Yadav had met stakeholders on the issue on August 28 as well and said all political parties are unanimous about 27 per cent OBC quota. The previous Congress government in MP under Kamal Nath, which was in power from December 2018 to March 2020, had raised the quota for OBCs from 14 to 27 percent through an ordinance. However, it got caught up in legal tangles. OBCs comprise 51.8 percent of Madhya Pradesh's population. Since 2003, all BJP chief ministers, namely Uma Bharti, Babulal Gaur, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Mohan Yadav, have been from the OBC segment.