Put off bypolls to ZPs, samitis to avoid any loss to OBCs: Chhagan Bhujbal

Fadnavis govt. mistakes led to reservations being scrapped by Supreme Court, he says

A day after the State Election Commission announced bypolls to five zilla parishads and 33 panchayat samitis seats rendered vacant after the Supreme Court scrapped political reservation for OBCs in local bodies, a Minister in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government has demanded their postponement. Senior OBC leader Chhagan Bhujbal on Wednesday said mistakes made by the previous Devendra Fadnavis government had resulted in the reservation being scrapped and the Central government refused to share empirical data on OBCs, which would have helped the case in the court. “The previous government issued an ordinance on July 31, 2019, where it mentioned that the OBCs will be given reservation as per its proportion within the limit of 50%. But on realising the need of census data, he wrote to Rajeev Kumar of NITI Ayog on August 1 seeking empirical data. Various letters from different departments were written but the Centre did not give information,” he said presenting documents.