Bhopal: Anandiben Patel, governor of Madhya Pradesh approved the Kamal Nath government's ordinance increasing the reservation of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in government jobs and university admission from the current 14% to 27%. CM Kamal Nath while announcing the increase on March 6 had also announced the early implementation of the 10% reservation in government jobs and college admissions to the economically weaker sections in the general category. 

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However, the ordinance route was taken amid the possibility of the model code of conduct for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls being announced by the election commission. While announcing the ordinance, Nath had attacked the former BJP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan saying that the BJP was in power for 15 years and still they did not think about the OBCs of the state. On the question of quota limit breaching the 50% ceiling set by the Supreme Court, he had said that when Tamil Nadu can breach the limit then why not Madhya Pradesh. 

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It is to be noted that before this new 27% OBC quota and 10% reservation, the maximum 20% reservation was offered to scheduled tribes, 16 per cent to scheduled castes and 14% to the OBC. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Congress lost a major chunk of its voters to the BJP with its vote share being reduced to 34.9%, while the BJP secured 54% of the votes. However, in the last year's assembly elections to the state, the Congress improved its vote share to 41.4% from the 2013 assembly polls when it secured only 36.4% votes. The BJP on the other had lost its share and was reduced to 41.3% from the 2013 assembly polls of 44.9%.