Only Centre can raise reservation limit by removing the 50 per cent cap: Uddhav Thackeray

Uddhav Thackeray. File Pic

The Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday said that the state lacks the power to remove the 50% cap on reservations, asserting that only the Centre has the authority to raise the ceiling limit through Parliament, reported the PTI.

Uddhav Thackeray slammed the Eknath Shinde-led government over the vexed Maratha reservation issue and demanded deliberations with various sections to find a solution through mutual understanding instead of holding discussions only with politicians.

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"The state does not have the right to increase the limit of reservations. It can be resolved in Lok Sabha. My MPs will back it (if any law is proposed to increase the 50% cap)," the former chief minister told reporters, as per the PTI.

"Everyone must go to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and he should decide (on resolving the reservation issue). Whatever it is (the decision), we will accept it," he said.

Uddhav Thackeray said that the ruling party must clarify whether it wants to hurt the (interests of) Other Backward Classes, citing the High Court's stay on the Bihar government's decision to raise quotas to 65 per cent.

The former Maharashtra CM said that the Marathas won't get justice till incumbent rulers (Shiv Sena led by Shinde, BJP, and NCP headed by Ajit Pawar) continue to be at the helm of affairs.

Uddhav Thackeray said that the former ally (BJP) has changed and become "brutal".

"This brutal tendency must be destroyed in Maharashtra and the country," he said while responding to a query on allegations raised by former state home minister and the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP SP) leader Anil Deshmukh against Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, according to the PTI.

Anil Deshmukh had claimed an "intermediary" had visited him when he was the home minister in the previous MVA government on behalf of Fadnavis, who was the opposition leader, with affidavits implicating then CM Uddhav Thackeray and ministers Aaditya Thackeray, Ajit Pawar and Anil Parab.

Devendra Fadnavis has denied the allegations.

Uddhav Thackeray also called for rehabilitating residents of Dharavi slum sprawl, undergoing redevelopment, in the same locality and not elsewhere in the city.

(with PTI inputs)