OBC committee members put up united front

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, September 13

The OBCs tried to put up a united front at a meeting of the Ghirth, Chahang, Bahti Mahasabha in Mandal village, 10 km from here today. While members of the communities from all over the state attended the meeting, prominent leaders, including Sarveen Cahudhary, BJP MLA and former minister from Shahpur, and Ramesh Dhawala, former minister from Jwalamukhi, failed to turn up.

Established in 1932, the sabha used to represent the OBC communities of the entire northern region earlier. Its spokesperson Vikram Chaudhary said they had invited both Sarveen Chaudhary and Ramesh Dhawala for the event. The two, however, refused to come. “We have organised the event to highlight genuine demands of the community and there is no political motives behind it,” he said.

The sabha meeting was presided over by Chief Parliamentary Secretary Neeraj Bharti and Independent MLA from Kangra Pawan Kajal. It was being expected that the meeting would fuel the ongoing feud between Neeraj Bharti and the supporters of the Minister for Food and Civil Supplies, Transport and Technical Education, GS Bali.

While speaking over the issue, Neeraj Bharti said in Shimla, he and Pawan Kajal had a friendly spat over some issue. However, some scribe spread the rumour that he had slapped Pawan Kajal. He alleged that the people who were spreading such rumours were trying to divide the OBC community.

Pawan Kajal also denied that any incident of his being slapped had occurred. He urged the people of the community to come together and fight for their rights.

Meanwhile, the leaders praised Pawan Kajal for taking up the issue of providing 27 per cent reservation to the OBCs in Himachal. At present, the OBCs are getting 12 per cent reservation in Class I and Class II jobs and 18 per cent reservation in Class III and Class IV jobs.

The OBC leaders said they should be given 27 per cent reservation in government jobs in Himachal and members of their community should also get reservation in the state staff selection board and Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission. They also demanded that the backlog of OBC reservation should be cleared.

As per the information available from OBC Finance Commission website, there are about 9 lakh OBCs in the state. About 50 per cent of the total OBC population is in Kangra district.

Some members of the community distributed pamphlets in which certain Facebook posts of Neeraj Bharti carrying abusive language were printed.