Kolkata: Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stated at the state Assembly on Tuesday that backwardness is the only criterion for determining OBC status and has ‘nothing to do with religion’.
“Some people are trying to campaign that the state government is providing reservations on the basis of religion, which is baseless. We have made the new list of OBC-A and OBC-B on the basis of a scientific benchmark survey conducted by the Commission and included those communities who are backward.
There is no question of making a list of OBC categories on the basis of religion,” said Banerjee following the laying out of the interim report of the West Bengal Commission for Backward Classes for the period from (1/ 4/ 2025 to 5/6/ 2025).
In May 2024, the Calcutta High Court had quashed the decision to classify 77 communities, mostly Muslims as OBC. The state moved the Apex Court challenging the order and in March had informed the top court that a fresh exercise for the identification of OBC in the state will be conducted which will take around three months time, following which the Supreme Court agreed to adjourn the matter by three months and take it up in July.
Accordingly, the Commission conducted the survey and till now has proposed a list of 140 communities. Out of that, 49 communities are in OBC-A list and 91 communities are included in OBC-B, while another 50 communities are still being surveyed.
“We hope that the survey will also be concluded within the time given by the Supreme Court,” said Banerjee.
She expressed her hope that colleges, different recruitment boards can now kick off their admission process.
“There was no such survey held during the erstwhile Left Front government. But from 2012-2024 inclusion and sub categorisation all inclusion surveys were done by the state government,” said Banerjee.
The Bengal Cabinet recently approved to include 76 new castes to the Other Backward Class (OBC) list.
The new castes would be added to the existing 64 ethnic groups on the OBC list. The recommendations to add more castes to the OBC list were made by the West Bengal Commission for Backward Classes (WBCBC).
After the Chief Minister laid the Bill, the BJP legislators started raising slogans against the state government alleging that Hindu communities have been deprived.
Adhikari claimed that the Chief Minister was “not ready to face questions from the Opposition”.