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OBC Status For Four Muslim Groups Soon

By akansha, Section News
Posted on Thu Feb 04, 2010 at 01:44:54 AM EST

In a desperate bid to win back the Muslim vote bank, the Left Front government has decided to give backward class status to four Muslim groups in the state.

This is basically a roundabout way of giving reservation benefits in education, jobs and loan facilities to these minority groups, because reservation on the basis of religion is still not in vogue.

For the past six months, the West Bengal Commission for Backward Classes has been studying the cases of 28 backward groups and according to a senior official, four Muslim groups from this list have been identified to be given OBC status.

"A clearance report from the commission has been sent to the state government and a formal notification is expected in two weeks," a commission official said on Tuesday.

Two of these backward Muslim groups are concentrated in the Malda-Murshidabad belt and the other two in North and South 24-Parganas, the official added. Apart from these Muslim groups, the commission is likely to grant clearance to four other groups (including a Hindu one) soon. Commission officials would be going to Murshidabad and Malda between February 10 to 13 to conduct a survey before that.

The condition of the Muslims in Bengal is pathetic, as is evident from the Sachar Committee report findings, which says that of the 71% Hindu population in Bengal, 50% gets reservation benefits, while this figure is only 2.8 in case of Muslims.

Source: Times Of India OBC status for four Muslim groups soon

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With the crucial assembly polls round the corner, the Left Front government is now aggressively pushing projects to woo the Muslims.

At this point, however, the state government is not in a position to immediately introduce job reservation for minorities as recommended by Justice Ranganath Mishra, unless it is accepted by the Centre. Therefore, as an immediate option, it has taken the decision to grant OBC status to backward Muslim groups.

Some Hindu groups would also be granted OBC status as part of the exercise, but according to an official, Muslim groups are getting priority. At present, 40 Hindu groups, 11 Muslim groups, 15 hill tribal groups and two Christian groups in the state enjoy OBC status.

Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee, meanwhile, said the Left Front government is taking these "quick-fix" measures to appease the Muslim groups who have long been deprived. "This government has not done anything to improve the lot of the poor Muslims for so many years. They are doing this now with an eye on the 2011 assembly polls," he said.

Last week, Forward Bloc veteran Asok Ghosh took up the matter of reservation for minorities with chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Left Front chairman Biman Bose, asking them to implement the recommendations of Justice Ranganath Mishra as early as possible. Though the quota percentage may vary, Ghosh felt that reservation is necessary because most of the minority groups are economically backward.

CPM leader Mohammed Salim, too, said that the party central committee has demanded immediate implementation of the Ranganath panel recommendations. All Left Front partners have, in principle, endorsed reservation for minorities. The area that needs to be discussed, however, is how the suggestions are going to be implemented and what the reservation percentage would be.

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