Mumbai
Updated : Aug 29, 2014, 06:40 AM IST
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The Congress and NCP are using the quota card with alacrity to get an edge over others during the assembly elections due in October. After Maratha and Muslim quotas, the state cabinet has decided to add sub-sects from the Lingayat community to the backwards category. The state will also make a request to the Centre asking for the Lingayats, a sect comprising a population of around a crore and a powerful force in parts of western Maharashtra, Marathwada and Vidarbha, to get minority status in Maharashtra.
The state government has already stirred a hornets nest by granting quotas to Muslims and the dominant Maratha community.
Setting the stage
The state appointed a committee comprising water supply minister Dilip Sopal, transport minister Madhukarrao Chavan and the secretary of the state social justice department to make necessary recommendations regarding the inclusion of Lingayats in the other backward classes (OBC) category. NCP chief and former union minister Sharad Pawar had spoken about granting Lingayats the status of a minority community.
Which sects will come under the quota?
Sopal said that the Cabinet, on Thursday, decided that 11 sub-sects from the community will be added to the OBC category and three to the special backwards category (SBC). Communities like Lingayat Gurav, Lingayat Jangam, Lingayat Kumbhars, Lingayat Sutars and Lingayat Fularis would be added to the OBC category based on the recommendations of the state backward classes commission, while Lingayat Koshti, Lingayat Devang and Lingayat Sali will now be part of SBC. "This will help economically, educationally and socially strengthen backward sub-sects in the Lingayat community," said Sopal.
In addition, the government will made a recommendation to the state backward classes commission that 12 remaining sub-sects be added to the OBC category.
Minority status also on cards?
"We will make a recommendation to the Centre to grant minority status to the Lingayats," said Sopal, adding that the National Commission for Minorities would have to take a decision in this regard. However, the Centre had earlier turned down the demand to declare the community as a religious minority, and Sopal said this time, they would seek that the community be declared a minority in Maharashtra based on its different customs and traditions, including burying the dead.
Prominent members of the sect in Maharashtra include former Union home minister Shivraj Patil Chakurkar, former minister Ratnappa Kumbhar, Lok Sabha MP Chandrakant Khaire, and former minister Vinay Kore- Savkar.
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