Stating that reservation on the basis of religion would not be possible, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said that his Government was ready to give reservation to any further backward sections from Muslim community if state OBC Commission recommends so.

After state assembly passed a bill providing reservation to Maratha community on Thursday, leader of opposition in state Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, as well as MLAs from MIM, raised the issue of Muslim reservation. Vikhe Patil and a few members also raised the issue of reservation to Dhangar (shepherd) community in the state. Shiv Sena also raised the issue of reservations to smaller groups like Dhangar, Lingayats and other communities.

Chief Minister Fadnavis, however, made it clear that the reservation on the premise of being from any religion cannot stand in Supreme Court since Constitution does not provide for any such reservation on the basis of religion. He said that 52 castes from Muslim community already are included in the list of OBCs. Fadnavis said "it is a dichotomy that despite the fact that Muslim religion does not subscribe to allowing any Muslim to have any caste since the system is not there in the religion. But many Muslim citizens in India have their caste written on their caste certificate and it has happened that one brother gets reservation benefits and the other does not for the simple reason that one has caste mentioned in the certificate and the other is mentioned just as Muslim. The reservation to 52 sub-castes within the Muslim community is provided only on the basis of caste and not on religion. If any more castes within Muslims in the state want reservation as they are underprivileged or socially, educationally back-word, OBC Commission should recommend for their reservation and state was ready to accord such reservation if the commission recommends.'

Vikhe-Patil demanded reinstating educational reservation benefits to Muslim students which were given by previous Government and even High Court did not strike it down. Shiv Sena leader Sunil Prabhu made it clear that Shiv Sena was in favour of reservation to any back-word community in the state including from Muslim community. MIM MLA Imtiaz Jaleel told that MIM would approach High Court for reservation to Muslim community since Muslims are living in a worse situation than Marathas in the state.