New Delhi: The BJP government in Madhya Pradesh has been left red-faced after the Supreme Court’s verdict Tuesday that local body elections must be notified within two weeks without an Other Backward Class (OBC) quota, due to the state not having completed the required “triple test” exercise for reservations.
The political fallout has been immediate: The opposition Congress has been tweeting up a storm about the state government’s ‘betrayal’ of the OBCs, while BJP leaders have been desperately trying to do damage control.
So fraught has the situation become that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan cancelled his trip to London, where he was scheduled to attend an investors’ summit, tweeting that his government remained “fully committed” to the OBCs’ “social, economic, and political empowerment”.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a senior BJP leader told ThePrint that certain “mistakes” could cost the party heavily in Madhya Pradesh.
“We have made two mistakes. First, we did not complete the triple test process on time. Second, our legal team was not sound enough to convince the Supreme Court during the hearing,” the leader said.
“Now, holding the local body elections without OBC reservation will damage the BJP’s narrative about empowerment ahead of the assembly election (due in 2023). Given the sensitivities around caste and reservations in India, the opposition can gain from this situation by spreading rumours,” he added.
Congress leaders like Kamal Nath — who became CM in 2018 until his government lost majority in March 2020 when nearly two-dozen MLAs in Jyotiraditya Scindia’s camp left with him to join the BJP — have already claimed that the failure to complete the triple test on time points towards a “conspiracy”.
“The anti-OBC face of the Shivraj government has been revealed once again… they did not want the OBC category to get reservation benefits, and so plotted a conspiracy,” Nath alleged while speaking to mediapersons.
He also emphasised that his short-lived government had hiked the OBC quota from 14 per cent to 27 per cent in 2019, which the BJP had annulled. In a tweet, Nath addressed the BJP: “The wounds you have inflicted cannot be cured… the OBCs will not fall for your bluff.”
आपने जो ज़ख़्म दिये है , अब वो किसी भी दवा से ठीक होने वाले नही है।
प्रदेश का ओबीसी वर्ग इस सच्चाई को जान चुका है , अब वो आपके किसी भी गुमराह करने वाले झाँसे में आने वाला नही है।
— Kamal Nath (@OfficeOfKNath) May 11, 2022
While the Shivraj government plans to file a review petition in the Supreme Court, BJP sources told ThePrint they are seriously concerned about the electoral ramifications in next year’s assembly elections if the local polls are held without OBC reservation. In a state where 50 per cent of the population comprised OBCs according to the 2011 Census, this could be a political landmine for the BJP.
According to sources, the BJP high command is displeased about the legal fight and has called CM Chouhan, state home minister Narottam Mishra, and state urban development minister Bhupendra Singh to Delhi to review the situation and devise strategies to deal with it.
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Supreme court case and ‘triple test’ controversy
The Chouhan government’s current predicament resulted from a somewhat convoluted series of developments, starting with the Kamal Nath regime’s decision to increase the OBC quota in March 2019, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections that year.
In November 2021, the BJP government brought in an ordinance to annul the Nath dispensation’s delimitation and reservation of seats. Some Congress leaders petitioned against this move in the Supreme Court, which in December last year — a month before the local body elections were to take place — told the state election commission (SEC) to renotify OBC seats under the general category.
The SC also instructed the state government to follow a 2010 Constitution bench judgment that called for a ‘triple test’ procedure to be followed for reservations.
This process entails first setting up a dedicated panel to collect data and assess the need for reservations in local bodies, and then reviewing the panel’s recommendations on the required quota. The third stage is to ensure that the overall reservation, inclusive of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, does not exceed 50 per cent of total seats. The SC had given the MP government a deadline of four months for this.
Meanwhile, the MP government took over the work of delimitation from the SEC, cancelled the local body elections that were due for January 2022, and appointed administrators.
The MP government in May submitted a report prepared by the state’s Backward Caste Welfare Commission and argued that 35 per cent reservation should be given to OBCs in the local polls.
However, the Supreme Court bench headed by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar was not impressed and said that the government had not completed the triple test process. The bench also refused to allow more time for doing so.
Elections to more 23,200 local bodies had not been held in MP for more than two years, the Supreme Court said, which was a situation “bordering on breakdown of rule of law” and could not be “countenanced”. It then ordered the SEC to notify the local body polls without reservations for OBCs.
The verdict denotes a return to the status quo that existed before Kamal Nath’s interventions. Until 2014, the local body polls had 16 per cent seats reserved for Scheduled Castes, 20 per cent for Scheduled Tribes, and 14 per cent for OBCs.
Ammo for Congress, BJP in a tricky situation
The Supreme Court’s verdict has given major ammunition to the Congress, which is now demanding a special session of the Assembly to nullify the court’s decision and to send a proposal to the Centre for instituting 27 per cent reservation for the OBC category.
“If the Shivraj government is serious, then it should call for an Assembly session for a resolution to be passed for OBC reservation,” Congress MLA Kamleshwar Patel told ThePrint. “But it is an RSS ploy to deny reservation,” he alleged.
Speaking to ThePrint, petitioner Jaffar Islam, a Congress leader, levelled similar allegations. “The state government is still seeking time to complete the triple test. How much time do they need?” he asked.
BJP leaders, meanwhile, are trying to draw attention the fact that it was petitions from the Congress that led to the matter ending up in the SC in the first place, and that the opposition party was thus responsible for failing the OBCs.
Home minister Narottam Mishra told ThePrint that the Congress’s actions seemed hypocritical. “The Congress went to court and now it is talking about OBC reservations. The BJP has given Madhya Pradesh three chief ministers from the OBC community (Chouhan, Uma Bharti, and Babulal Gaur), but Kamal Nath ditched the (late) OBC leader Subhash Yadav so he could become CM,” he alleged.
OBC leaders in the BJP, however, are upset at the current scenario.
Bhagat Singh Kushwah, chief of the BJP OBC Morcha in MP told ThePrint: “We respect the Supreme Court’s decision, but how is it that a community which forms about 50 per cent of the population is getting only 14 per cent reservation? It is an injustice to the community… the court should consider the larger issue.”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
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