KOLKATA: In a major overhaul of West Bengal’s OBC reservation policy, the BJP government led by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Tuesday reduced the OBC quota from 17 per cent to 7 per cent and removed Muslim communities from the OBC category with immediate effect.
The decision was taken by the state cabinet barely 10 days after the formation of the first BJP government in West Bengal following the swearing-in ceremony held at Brigade Parade Grounds in Kolkata on May 9 in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Under the previous Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front and later the All India Trinamool Congress government led by Mamata Banerjee, OBC Category A had 10 per cent reservation and OBC Category B had 7 per cent reservation, taking the total quota to 17 per cent.
With the revised policy, the total OBC reservation has now been reduced to 7 per cent. The BJP government claimed that the earlier expansion of the reservation structure lacked proper legal backing and was based on “flawed surveys and classifications”.
According to the cabinet decision, the revised quota will now apply only to “genuinely backwards Hindu communities” that are outside the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe categories.
The most significant aspect of the policy change is the removal of Muslim groups from the OBC category. Earlier, a substantial portion of the OBC-A category and parts of OBC-B included several Muslim communities.
The state government cited earlier observations of the Calcutta High Court, which had struck down the inclusion of several Muslim groups in the OBC list as unconstitutional. The matter later reached the Supreme Court of India.
Defending the move, the government said the Constitution does not permit religion-based reservations and accused previous administrations of expanding Muslim OBC inclusion for “vote-bank politics”, allegedly depriving other backward Hindu communities of reservation benefits.
The revised reservation policy is expected to impact recruitment and higher education admissions across the state.
Political observers believe the decision could significantly alter Bengal’s social and electoral equations and may trigger legal challenges in the coming days. During the election campaign, BJP leaders had repeatedly alleged that OBC benefits were diverted towards appeasement politics under the Trinamool Congress government over the past 15 years.
