The BJP chalked up an elaborate plan at its executive meeting in Mumbai on Thursday to use the issue of reservation as a handy tool to strengthen its electoral base. The party gave a call to its cadre to protest the conversion of OBC seats to general category in the local bodies' elections. In the first rally planned on June 26, one lakh party workers across Maharashtra will take to the streets. Opposition leader Devendra Fadnavis, who addressed the meeting, said, "We will not rest till OBC reservation in local bodies' poll is restored in the state. We will escalate our fight against all three parties in the ruling coalition." Fadnavis said the MVA government had betrayed the OBCs, and the Supreme Court decision was owing to the state government's failure. "The party (BJP) will fight till quota is restored. It will not allow local bodies' elections to take place till then," Fadnavis added. The OBCs constitute 52 per cent of the population in the state with more than 350 castes and sub-castes. Since its foundation in 1980, the BJP has always played the OBC plank to emerge as a mainstream party in Maharashtra. While Fadnavis will lead the protest in his hometown of Nagpur, state BJP president Chandrakant Patil will lead it in Kolhapur, national secretary Pankaja Munde in Pune, former minister Girish Mahajan in Nashik among others.
