BJP cries 'appeasement' as Mamata Banerjee unveils new OBC list

With the West Bengal Assembly elections due in about eight months, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government led by Mamata Banerjee has moved swiftly to consolidate its core Muslim vote bank by unveiling a new list of Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

- SUPROTIM MUKHERJEE

This comes after the Calcutta High Court struck down the previous list, observing that "religion appears to have been the sole criterion" for granting OBC status.

On Tuesday, Banerjee tabled the revised OBC-A and OBC-B lists in the Assembly, adding 76 new groups and taking the total to 140. Of these, 80 communities are Muslim. The lists were adopted with lightning speed, despite protests from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Announcing the move, Banerjee said the issuance of OBC certificates for college admissions and government jobs would resume immediately.

"Many recruitment boards had put the process on hold due to legal confusion. That will now be resolved," she said, adding, "Backwardness, not religion, was the sole criterion in the fresh OBC survey."

The BJP, however, alleged that the new list suffers from the same flaw as the previous one—being skewed in favor of Muslims.

West Bengal's Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari called the move "appeasement politics" and claimed that "OBC" in Bengal now stands for "One-Sided Beneficiary." He pointed out that prior to 2010, only 11 of the 66 OBC groups were Muslim.