NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is preparing a heady cocktail for the next general election in 2024. Along with the winning combination of Hindutva and welfarism, Modi plans to appropriate the reservation plank and deny the opposition one of its biggest election issues.
The PM had set up a four-member commission headed by Justice (Retd) G Rohini on October 2, 2017, to examine if the Other Backward Classes need to be sub-categorised to ensure equitable distribution of the reservation benefits. After 13 extensions, the commission’s term ends on January 31, 2023. Sources said the panel may submit its report anytime to the government.
The commission was formed because government data revealed that over 90% of the OBC quota benefits were cornered by about a dozen dominant castes such as Yadavs, Jats, Kurmis, Vokkaligas, Sainis, Thevars, Ezhavas etc. The OBC quota is meant for over 3,000 castes and communities categorised as backwards by the Mandal Commission.
Therefore, the commission recommends sub-classifications of the dominant castes to ensure a more equitable distribution of benefits. It also suggests dividing the 3,000 OBC communities into four categories with a fixed percentage of benefits going to each type from the overall 27% OBC reservation. Empowering smaller OBC communities may bring huge electoral benefits for the BJP. The party has already successfully experimented with the idea in Uttar Pradesh by creating a social coalition of non-Yadav OBC castes.
The biggest pushback to Modi’s BJP has come from the leaders of the dominant OBC castes. Among them are Lalu Yadav, his son Tejashwi Yadav and Nitish Kumar in Bihar, Akhilesh Yadav in UP, H D Deve Gowda and son H D Kumaraswamy in Karnataka from the non-Congress parties. From the Congress, most of the top leaders leading the charge against the BJP in the states belong to the OBCs — Bhupesh Baghel in Chhattisgarh, Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan, Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Haryana, D K Shivkumar and Siddaramaiah in Karnataka.
These opposition OBC leaders recently stirred the caste cauldron by demanding a nationwide caste census. They reject the 2006 National Sample Survey Organisation report, which puts the total OBC population at 41%, down from 52% mentioned in the Mandal Commission report of 1980. Nitish has already started a caste survey in Bihar.
The Rohini report, therefore, may prove to be the BJP’s ace in caste politics. It has the potential to ignite a debate on the denial of benefits to the overwhelming number of OBC communities. It may, however, face criticism over the authenticity of the data used by it. Social justice, coupled with the opening of a grand Ram temple at Ayodhya, which is likely to witness a global gathering bigger than the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas, and subsidised foodgrain for 80 crore people, is the plank on which the PM will enter the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.