Nana Patole, the president of the Maharashtra Congress, stated on Thursday that if voted to power in the next elections for both the state and the Central government, it would provide the Maratha community reservation by raising the quota's 50 percent maximum.
He also said that caste-based census was the only option to provide a permanent solution to the issue of reservation. Patole was addressing a press conference here on the sidelines of the Congress's Jan Samvad Yatra. To a query on the ongoing Maratha reservation issue, Patole said, Caste-based census is the only option for a permanent solution to provide reservation and give justice for all sections of the society.
The previous government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh government had worked on this aspect and a census was carried out in 2011. However, after the Modi government came to power in 2014, it did not take the caste-based census further, which means that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) did not accept that census, he alleged.
He attributed the Maratha reservation issue to the BJP, which is in power. Devendra Fadnavis, the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, had pledged during the 2014 elections that if the BJP won both the state and the federal government, Marathas would receive reservations. Although it was against the BJP's rights to do so, they had also pledged quotas to the Dhangar (shepherd) group, the speaker stated.
However, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has taken a clear stand. If our party's government comes to power in the state and at the Centre, our stand will be to give reservation to the Maratha community by increasing the 50 per cent ceiling, without having to touch the reservation of other communities, Patole added.