With eye on 2019, BJP woos OBCs

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 23

Ahead of the 2019 General Election, the BJP has started building on the OBC poll plank to add on to existing ones of “corruption-free development and good governance”.

The decision announcing the setting up of a commission today to examine the sub-categorisation of backward communities in the central list to ensure that benefits extended to OBCs reach all communities seems to be a part of the larger exercise.

Observers believe it would help sections feeling neglected because of political and numerical supremacy of some rallying behind the BJP. Besides, the saffron party is also planning to use the embarrassment it suffered in the monsoon session during the passage of a Constitution amendment Bill on backward classes against the Congress as the “biggest proof” of “anti-backward and anti-Dalit” attitude of the lead Opposition. 

A combined Opposition had managed to force amendments to the Bill providing for setting up of a National Commission for Backward Classes, which BJP leaders claim is the evidence that “the Congress party in particular was not a well-wisher of backward classes”. “Members of the OBC community also know this, “says a senior BJP leader, actively involved with the framing of legislation.

Significantly, the Monday meeting that saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah directing BJP CMs to work for a ‘New India’ by 2022 and focus on the welfare of the poor and farmers also saw instructions regarding the crucial Bill.

So far as today’s move is concerned, if the Commission moots sub-categorisation, it could result in a major upset in political dimensions of the OBCs, particularly in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh that send as many as 120 MPs to the Parliament. 

Meanwhile, BJP chief Amit Shah said increasing the “creamy layer” ceiling would ensure benefits of reservation and other polices reach a greater number of the backward classes. The sub-categorisation would ensure sections that require more help get the primacy. He added that the decision showed the Modi government was sensitive to  uplift of all sections of backward classes.