While stating that the Supreme Court’s scrapping of the Maratha quota law would severely impact the poorer sections of the community, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) leader Prakash Ambedkar nevertheless said that they were to “blame” for having failed to carve out a political identity for themselves.
Mr. Ambedkar, the grandson of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, said that while no OBCs (Other Backward Class) or SCs (Scheduled Caste) had ever been against poorer sections of the Maratha community, it had always been rich Marathas against their poorer brethren.
“While it is unfortunate that the Maratha quota law has been repealed by the Supreme Court, which also rejected the Gaikwad Commission’s report , the poorer sections of the Maratha community are to blame for getting things to such a pass. They have not tried to create an independent identity for themselves and have kowtowed to the 10% of the rich and influential members of their community whether be they from the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party or the Bharatiya Janata Party,” he said, adding that the SC judgment had gone against poorer sections of the community while the richer members were not affected at all.
Unless an economic “dividing line” was created between the wealthier, influential sections and the backward people within the Maratha community, the latter could neither prove nor claim reservation benefits, Mr. Ambedkar observed.
“The trouble is the poorer elements are invariably used politically by the richer people of the community. These 10% own sugar cooperatives, education institutions, banks, hospitals and other levers of power…unless the former convince the Supreme Court of their backwardness, then they will be able to secure reservation,” the VBA chief said, remarking that when Babasaheb Ambedkar had demanded reservation before the Simon Commission, he had made it a point to include deprived sections within the Maratha community as well and not just Dalits.
Mr. Ambedkar said that protests by pro-Maratha outfits were ineffectual and that those seeking reservation would have to use different pressure tactics to present their case in the Supreme Court.
