40 BJP leaders held in Mumbai for protest seeking OBC reservation in polls

The Mumbai police on Wednesday detained nearly 40 BJP workers, including senior party leaders Chandrakant Patil, Pravin Darekar, and Sudhir Mungantiwar, while they were protesting outside the party office near the state secretariat, seeking reservation for the OBCs in elections.

The detained BJP workers were taken to the Azad Maidan in south Mumbai and later released, an official said.

Earlier, some BJP workers started the protest around 11.30 am outside their party office near the Maharashtra secretariat ‘Mantralaya’ in south Mumbai, demanding reservations for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in elections.

As the protesters, along with some 250 party workers, were planning to go to Mantralaya to press for their demands, the Marine Drive police intervened and started taking them into the police vans, the official said.

At least 40 protesters, including Leader of Opposition in state Legislative Council Pravin Darekar, state BJP chief Chandrakant Patil and former minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, were detained.

They were released after being taken to the Azad Maidan, the official said.

The Supreme Court earlier this year rejected the Maharashtra State Backward Classes Commission’s interim report recommending the restoration of 27 percent reservation for OBCs in the local body polls. The court also asked the state government and the SEC not to act on the commission’s recommendations.

The Supreme Court had last year stayed the 27 percent quota for OBCs in local body polls. It had asked the government to set up a commission to conduct an empirical inquiry into the nature and implications of backwardness and specify the proportion of reservation required.