BHUBANESWAR: The demand for 27 percent reservation to other backward classes (OBCs) in medical and dental courses of the State has grown louder with the Supreme Court upholding the Constitutional validity of OBC quota in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for undergraduate and post-graduate medical admission.
The BJP urged the State government to ensure that the order of the apex court is implemented in the State which will benefit around 600 students in getting admission to medical courses.
Dubbing the BJD government anti-OBC, president of the BJP OBC Morcha Surath Biswal said the State government could have deferred the panchayat election like Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh for at least three months to extend the OBCs their benefits of reservation in the three-tier panchayat elections.
He said the State could have submitted that data on the OBCs as per the 2011 census on socio economically backward classes (SEBC) to the State Commission for OBCs for consideration of reservation for the OBCs.
Due to non-implementation of reservation for the last 15 years, thousands of students of other backward classes have been deprived of government services and admission to medical and engineering institutions.
The State government has committed a grave Constitutional injustice by depriving the OBC their due representation in the local body election for another five years, the leaders alleged.
Former Union Minister Srikanta Jena has appealed to all political parties to shed their differences and fight for the cause of the vast majority of the OBC population in the State.