Bhopal, Jan 30 (IANS) The Congress has accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Madhya Pradesh government of showing double standards and betraying the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) from the 27 per cent reservation in the state government services.
This allegation by the Congress is not new but a fresh attack as the lawyers representing the state government didn’t appear for a hearing regarding the matter in the Supreme Court on Thursday.
The apex court has postponed the next hearing on the matter on February 4.
Veteran Congress leader and former Chief Minister Kamal Nath criticised the development, saying the “negligence” of the lawyers was a deliberate attempt from the ruling BJP to weaken its case in the court.
“The Supreme Court was scheduled to hear the case regarding the 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in the state today, but no lawyer from the state government appeared before the court. This exposed the double standards of the BJP on the OBC reservation issue,” Nath said in a statement.
The Congress leader also added that the BJP-led state government has been adopting this evasive approach for the past several years.
“Sometimes the lawyers don’t appear in court, and if they do, they don’t bring the necessary documents, and if they have the documents, they ask for an adjournment,” Nath said.
Kamal Nath, who had approved the reservation quota to the OBC candidates up to 27 per cent during his tenure as the Chief Minister in 2019-20, alleged that despite there being no stay on this law from the High Court or the Supreme Court, “the BJP government is continuously depriving the OBC community of the reservation.”
State Congress President Jitu Patwari also responded in the matter, alleging that over the past seven to eight years, the BJP has spent crores of rupees of public money on lawyers to prevent OBC reservation.
“Chief Minister Mohan Yadav’s government did not even send its lawyers to the Supreme Court. It is clear that the BJP government does not want to implement the 27 per cent reservation for the OBC community,” Patwari said on social media platform X.
The BJP, however, was yet to make any official statement on this matter.
–IANS
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