Oppn targets BJD govt on OBC quota

Bhubaneswar: Opposition political parties on Thursday criticised the BJD government for holding urban local body and panchayat elections without OBC quota. The attack comes a day after the Supreme Court gave its nod for OBC quota in Madhya Pradesh.
BJP state general secretary Lekhashri Samantsinghar said the apex court verdict proves that the Naveen Patnaik government has ignored the backward classes. “Why did the government not approach the SC with the required triple tests for quota?” read a part of Samantsinghar’s tweets.
Congress OBC cell chairman Gyandev Beura said the BJD should have deferred the polls, as was demanded by us, and ensure collection of backward class data by the Odisha State Commission for Backward Classes (OSCBC) to meet the triple test criteria and then held the elections by providing reservations to the OBCs.
As per an SC direction, quotas for backward classes is subject to the triple tests of forming a commission, gathering of empirical data on backward classes by it and then introducing quota subject to 50% overall ceiling,
The Samajwadi Party’s Odisha unit demanded caste census at the earliest to ensure 27% quota for the OBCs in jobs and admissions.
SP state chief Rabi Behera on Thursday wrote a letter to the chief minister’s office seeking time with Naveen to submit a memorandum in this regard. The BJD was yet to respond to the development.
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