MUMBAI: Noisy scenes were witnessed in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Thursday with Opposition insisting that the government table the State Backward Class Commission's report on Maratha quota and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences' (TISS) report on Dhangar reservation.
The house had to be adjourned thrice; first till the end of Question Hour and then twice for ten minutes before it was adjourned for the day.
The Speaker rushed through the day's business and passed a bill providing for life imprisonment for food adulteration and the Maharashtra Acupuncture Treatment Procedure bill.
Throughout the proceedings, Opposition MLAs demanded tabling of the two reports and continuation of the Muslim reservation, granted earlier by the Congress-NCP regime.
NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal asked the government to take steps to increase the ceiling on reservations to above 50 per cent.
He said when Gowari and Koshti-Halba were given two per cent quota, the court struck it down as it breached the 50 per cent ceiling, and then the two communities were included in OBC category.
Thus, the quota for others among OBCs came down from 19 per cent to 17 per cent, he pointed out.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said Marathas will be provided reservations over and above the existing 52 per cent quota.
Even the State Backward Class Commission (SBCC) has noted that including Marathas in the existing quota will have a catastrophic effect, he said.
The chief minister pointed out that Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have raised the quota beyond 50 per cent, and their petitions justifying it by citing extraordinary circumstances is before the constitution bench of the Supreme Court.
The 50 per cent cap has been imposed by the apex court and not the Constitution, he said.
An SC judgement says that in case of an extraordinary situation, the quota limit can be extended provided the SBCC makes such a recommendation, Fadnavis said.
On media reports that the government told the Bombay High Court that it had accepted SBCC's recommendations and not the report, Fadnavis said as per the law, the government has to take a decision as per the recommendations.
"The court accepted the stand and modified its order," he said.
The chief minister also said the government is committed to provide reservations to the Dhangars.
"I stand by our earlier promise of providing reservations to Dhangars. After taking over thereins of the state, I found the previous government had rejected Dhangars' quota demand. We set up a committee by TataInstitute of Social Sciences. Its report was received and cabinet sub-committee is scrutinising its recommendations."
"The recommendations will be placed before the cabinet and then forwardedto the Centre," the chief minister said.
"The process will be completed in a time-bound manner. Dhangars get 3.5 per cent reservations under VJNT category. But they want quota as a scheduled tribe," he said.
As Speaker Haribhau Bagde called for Question Hour, Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil demanded that other business should be set aside and the House should discuss Maratha,Dhangar and Muslim reservations issue and the long march to Mumbai undertaken by tribal farmers Thursday.
He also demanded an aid of Rs 50,000 per hectare for farmers who grew Kharif crops and Rs 1 lakh per hectare for horticulture farmers in drought-affected areas of the state.
Tribal farmers are demanding implementation of Forest Rights Act and Swaminathan Committee's report, and the government has not fulfilled the assurances given in March this year when they undertook a similar Long March from Nashik to Mumbai, he said.
He also demanded that the Maratha quota report by SBCC and TISS' report on Dhangar quota be tabled.
The demand was supported by NCP leader Ajit Pawar who said Opposition won't allow the House to function otherwise.
Ashish Shelar of BJP accused Pawar of doing a U-turn, saying Pawar had earlier this week said there was no need to table the report without checking if it can be challenged in the court.
AtulBhatkalkar, another BJP MLA, said Opposition was disrupting Question Hour when the first question that was to be discussed was about farmer suicides.
Vikhe Patil said rather than holding a debate, the government should announce compensation for farmers in drought-affected areas.
Fadnavissaid he had called representatives of the Adivasi Long March for talks.
"It is wrong to say nothing has been done in the last six months. In one district, forest rights claims of 32,000 villages have been settled," he said.
Ajit Pawar said there is unrest among Marathas over the delay in granting quota. There is unrest among the OBCs as well as they feel Maratha quota would eat into their reservation, he said.
Differing stands by senior ministers on the issue are not helping, he said.