National Commission of Backward Classes will review and delist 35 Socially and Educationally Backward castes from West Bengal from the central OBC list if their inclusion that was notified in 2014 does not meet stipulated parameters.
Speaking to reporters in Delhi on Wednesday NCBC chairman Hansraj Ahir said that in February 2014 UPA govt accepted the recommendation of the West Bengal govt for the inclusion of 37 castes in the central list “out of which 35 were Muslim OBCs”.
“If we find that due parameters as set in the Indira Sawney judgement have not been met, we will write to the president of India to remove these castes from the central OBC list," Ahir told DH.
Ahir said that his commission has also written to the state government pointing out that in 2009, there were 66 castes in the West Bengal state OBC list out of which 12 were Muslims.
“Now there are 179 castes in the West Bengal OBC list out of which 118 are Muslims and 61 Hindus," Ahir said.
“The way the OBC list has been expanded, Hindu OBCs stand to lose”; he added that the commission has asked the state govt to rectify this “anomaly”.
Unlike SC and ST reservations SEBC reservations are extended to castes across religious lines.
Trinamool Congress has reacted sharply to the statement by the NCBC chairman accusing the ruling party at the centre of ‘pitting one community against another’.
“With panchayat election round the corner, BJP has picked up this communal bugle," TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said.