OBC quota remains a political hot potato between the BJP and the Congress in MP

The Madhya Pradesh local elections have been canceled. Yet, Congress and the BJP continue to battle over the OBC reservation issue in preparation for the next assembly elections scheduled for 2023.

In a recent development, former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Kamal Nath on Saturday accused the BJP government of demeaning the Other Backward Class (OBC). He asserted that the state government is using its power to threaten members of the OBC community.

As Nath explained, the OBC community planned to protest on January 2 at the residence of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan but was threatened by the BJP government through notices.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan's government intimidates the OBC community, delivering notices to them, making them sit in police stations, Nath said. "Why is the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government so terrified of the OBC community?" he asked.

In addition, he claimed that the BJP government does nothing for the OBC community, nor is it willing to listen to it.

Earlier, the OBC Mahasabha declared that it would launch a protest on Sunday against being excluded from the reservation in panchayat polls and many other issues affecting the community. However, it's unclear whether the protest will take place.

In a move that took place Friday (Dec 31), the state government revoked the Kamal Nath government's ordinance of 2019. The move came days after the Shivraj government withdrew its ordinance on panchayat elections. Within 18 months of the date when the delimitation or division of panchayats was published, the State Election Commission must notify an election by way of a notice of election if that notification has not been made for any reason Upon the expiration of the 18-month period, the delimitation or division shall be deemed void.

Such a scenario will entail delimitation or re-division of these panchayats, along with their wards and constituency boundaries.

As a result of this ordinance, the election of panchayats for the year 2020 in the state has been canceled, for which the delimitation proceedings took place in September 2019.

A new process of delimiting and dividing panchayats, their wards, and constituencies will be conducted now, upon the completion of which the pending election process will be completed.