Mumbai: The Maharashtra Legislature on Wednesday unanimously ratified the Constitution (126th) Amendment Bill, which proposes to extend quota to SCs/STs in Lok Sabha and state assemblies by 10 more years.
A special one-day session of the legislature was held to ratify the Constitution Amendment Bill, passed by Parliament on December 11.
The resolution to ratify the bill was moved in the legislature by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and it was supported by the leader of Opposition in the state assembly Devendra Fadnavis and leader of Opposition in the state council Pravin Darekar.
Thackeray at the outset said scheduled castes and scheduled tribes have made considerable progress over the last 70 years and there is a need to retain the inclusive character as envisioned by the founding fathers of the Constitution.
Fadnavis shared Thackeray’s views and said social reformer Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar had strongly advocated that the democracy should be representative.
He supported the bill passed by the Parliament to extend the quota to SCs/STs in the Lok Sabha and assemblies by another 10 years. In Maharashtra, there are five SC and four ST Lok Sabha constituencies. The state also has 29 SC and 25 ST Assembly seats.
In the Council, Suresh Dhas of BJP, Bhai Jagtap of Congress and Jayant Patil of PWP said they wanted to speak on the issue, but Chairman Ramraje Nimbalkar did not allow them to do so.
“Parliament has already cleared the bill and the state also needs to do. There is no need to discuss it any further,” Nimbalkar told the Upper House and asked members not to insist on speaking on the bill.
