Madhya Pradesh to set up panel to study EWS Quota

New Delhi: Madhya Pradesh is unlikely to implement 10% reservation for economically weaker sections (EWS) soon as the Congress government in the state has decided to set up a committee to “study the matter” first, without specifying a time frame for the task.

Chief minister Kamal Nath said on Wednesday he was setting up a ministerial sub-committee to see how the reservation can be implemented since the Congress, in its manifesto for the assembly election, had also promised reservation based on poverty. His statement came after the leader of opposition, Gopal Bhargava, and former BJP minister Narottam Mishra raised the matter in the Zero Hour in the state assembly and sought to know why Madhya Pradesh had not implemented the 10% EWS reservation while most other states had done so.

Bhargava said his question on the issue was answered by the government on Wednesday, and that the matter was still under consideration. “It is not possible to give a time-deadline by which the 10% EWS reservation in jobs and educational institutions will be implemented,” the government said in a written reply to Bhargava.


Pointing to the CM, Bhargava said in the Zero Hour, “The political benefit of this will even come to you.” Bhargava had written to Nath on January 19 to immediately implement the 10% EWS reservation in MP after the Centre pushed through the enabling legislation in Parliament.

The government continued to face flak for written answers in the state assembly, as one answer ruled out any proposal to discontinue the BJP-era Vyapam system of examinations and recruitment.