Over 1,000 protest state decision to increase reservation to 72 per cent

Mumbai: The Save Merit, Save Nation (SMSN) Samiti Saturday held protests against the Maharashtra government’s decision to increase reservation in the state from 49 to 72 per cent. More than 1,000 people participated in the protests held at the office of the Pune division. The protesters, including academics, activists, social workers and students, said that the time had come to do away with reservations in employment and education.

The thousand-strong group strongly opposed the state government’s decision to increase the limit for reservation in jobs and education to 74 per cent from the existing 50 per cent fixed by the Supreme Court. Organisers of the protest told media persons that a large number of people, irrespective of religion and beliefs, turned up for the protest to send a strong message to the government that they were against reservation.

“We want economic reservation and believe in merit and merit alone can save the nation. We are not opposed to any caste. Everybody has the right to education and it must be purely decided on merit and not on reservation. This movement is in the national interest and it is completely apolitical and non-religious,” said convener Vishwajit Deshpande. He iterated that the samiti was not against any SC/ST based reservation. However, it demanded justice and dignity for merit.

He said that they were not opposed to reservation based on economic criteria and felt that even in that case, it should be less than 50 per cent.

A student who participated in the protest said, “The government should not deny justice to meritorious students. Our demand is that the reservation quota in jobs and education be restricted to 50 per cent as per the Constitution.”