Gujarat government announces 27 per cent OBC reservation in local polls

Gandhinagar: Ahead of the 2024 general elections, the Gujarat government on Tuesday reserved 27% seats for the Other Backward Communities (OBC) in the local bodies based on the report of the Jhaveri Commission.

The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting held on Tuesday. Currently, the OBC reservation is 10% while the Schedule Caste reservation is 7% and Schedule Tribe stands at 14%.

The state election commission had unreserved the OBC seats in local body elections in 2022 leading to widespread protests from the OBC community. Following the directive from the Supreme Court, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel had formed an independent commission under Retired judge of the Gujarat High Court K S Jhaveri to recommend reservation ratio in the local bodies.


The commission submitted its report in April this year. It may be mentioned here that the elections for 7,100 panchayats, 75 municipalities, 2 district panchayats, and 18 taluka panchayats are pending over this issue and the government has appointed administrators in these bodies.

While there is about 52% of OBC population in Gujarat, the Congress had been on the war path regarding the issue for some time now and had organised a token fast and demonstration under the “non-political” OBC Anamat Bachao Samiti (OABS) (Save OBC Reservation Committee) spearheaded by senior Congress leader Amit Chavda, in which even the OBC leaders of the BJP were invited.

Their demands included immediately carrying out of caste census by the state government in Gujarat, 27% reservation for the OBCs across all local bodies, 27% of the budgetary allocations be made for the OBCs and OBC-dominated areas and OBC sub-plan committees be set up from block to state level for monitoring the expenditure and 27% reservation for the OBCs across all cooperative bodies of the state.

The announcement led to celebrations in the BJP headquarter Kamalam in Gandhinagar where CM Bhupendra Patel and Gujarat BJP President CR Patil addressed the media.

However, Chavda maintained that the announcement of the state government is a result of political calculation of the ruling dispensation and said that the BJP has agreed to give 27% only because it does not want to give representation proportionate to the OBC population.