The Raje government’s decision to grant 1% reservation to Gurjars is in line with her party’s efforts to placate communities ahead of 2019.
New Delhi: Facing alienation from influential communities in many states, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is now looking to mollify and woo them with reservation doles, ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The party appears to be particularly targeting other backward classes (OBCs) and Dalits who have not benefitted from reservation.
Although the Centre has already appointed a committee for sub-categorisation of OBCs, many BJP-ruled states are dabbling with their own affirmative action formulae for these communities.
The latest move in this direction came in Rajasthan, where the Vasundhra Raje government on 2 July approved 1 per cent reservation for Gurjars and four other communities — the nomadic Banjara, Gadia-Lohar, Raika and Gadariya tribes — over and above the existing 21 per cent OBC quota in the state.
The chief minister was keen to placate the Gurjars, who are 6 per cent of the population and hold considerable sway in the state, after the BJP’s debacles in the bypolls at Alwar and Ajmer in January this year.
Dangling the reservation carrot is part of the BJP’s attempts to weave together a caste combination that could help it electorally come 2019. There seems to be a growing realisation within the ruling party that a Modi wave alone may not be enough for it to secure a second term in next year’s elections.
The course correction also appears to have been prompted by the widening trust deficit between the BJP and these influential communities, following the party’s experiment to appoint chief ministers of non-dominant communities in many states — a non-Jat in Haryana, a non-Maratha in Maharashtra, and a Thakur in Uttar Pradesh where non-Yadav OBCs overwhelmingly voted for the party.
Rajasthan
The Raje government, hoping to be re-elected in December this year when the state goes to polls, is looking to appease the Gurjars with the 1% reservation. The move is also a way to combat the appeal of state Congress president Sachin Pilot, a Gurjar, who has emerged as a serious challenger to Raje.
The immediate catalyst came after the Gujjar Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti threatened to protest during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposed visit to the state on 7 July.
Under the proposal, Gurjars and the four other most backward class (MBC) communities will be first considered for government jobs under the general category. Those who do not make the cut here will fall under the OBC category. Those still not selected can avail the one per cent reservation.
The state government has also promised to withdraw 203 criminal cases registered during the Gurjar quota agitation.
Apart from the Gurjars, the BJP is working on Jat voters in the state.
In August last year, the state government had brought the Jats of Dholpur and Bharatpur under the state OBC list. While Jats are listed as OBCs in Rajasthan, those from Dholpur and Bharatpur were not included in the list as the two former princely states were ruled by Jats.
The chief minister, who is married into the royal Jat family from Jodhpur, however, ensured that the demands of Jats from these two districts were fulfilled.
Uttar Pradesh
The emergence of the SP-BSP coalition and the ensuing opposition unity, which inflicted embarrassing defeats on the BJP in bypolls in Gorakhpur, Kairana and Nupur bypolls, has rattled the ruling party.
The BJP-led government was forced into action in the state where it won 73 of the 80 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Post the bypoll defeats, the Yogi Adityanath government formed a four-member committee — the Uttar Pradesh Pichhda Varg Samajik Nyay Samiti (backward class social justice committee) — to review the inequity of caste distribution under the 27 per cent OBC quota. The committee will also look at reservation for mahadalits within the SC quota umbrella.
There is wide belief that the biggest beneficiaries of OBC and Dalit quotas are Yadavs and Jatavs, with other communities having a meagre presence in government jobs.
The decision to form the panel is being seen as an attempt to woo communities such as the Rajbhars, Kamboj, Nishad and the Bind among the OBCs and Pasi in Dalits, who play a part in a good number of constituencies.
Haryana
The Jats, the dominant caste in Haryana with about 17 per cent of the population, have been agitating for reservation for a while now. The Jats had sided with the BJP in 2014 in the hope that the party would grant them OBC status.
With little movement on that front, Jats took to the streets in February 2016. The agitation turned violent, resulting in the deaths of 30 people.
In March 2016, the state assembly passed a bill setting aside 10 per cent reservation for Jats and five other communities but that has run into legal trouble.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court first upheld the state’s decision but later stayed its implementation in September 2017. The matter is in the Supreme Court, with the apex court calling for status quo until the matter is heard.
The Jats, however, are also angry with the government’s position in the Punjab and Haryana High Court that it won’t withdraw cases of the February 2016 agitation.
The All India Jat Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti (AJASS), which held a mahapanchayat in June, has given the state government time till 15 August to resolve the issue.
“The government had earlier promised to withdraw cases registered in February 2016 but it has now backtracked,” says Yashpal Malik, the AJASS president. “We have given it time till 15 August to implement reservation and withdraw the cases. Thereafter, we will start protesting in the meetings of Haryana government ministers.”
Maharashtra
In Maharashtra, the BJP is attempting to keep Maratha voters on its side by offering reservation of 16 per cent to the community.
The Marathas had a played a big part in the party’s exemplary performance in both the Lok Sabha and assembly elections of 2014, but took to the streets early in the BJP-led government’s tenure demanding a quota.
The state bowed to the pressure and passed a Maratha Reservation Bill in the assembly in December 2014. The matter, however, is pending in court.
At the Centre
The report of a committee to look into the sub-categorisation of OBCs is expected soon as its tenure ended on 30 June. The panel, approved by the union cabinet in October last year, was tasked with assessing the extent of inequality among castes listed under central OBC list.
Its findings may prompt the government to rearrange reservation among the OBCs, which could have a larger social and political impact on the party fortunes in the coming days.
The Centre is also pushing for granting constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC). A bill to this effect was passed in the Lok Sabha in April last year, but the opposition managed to successfully pass amendments to it in the Rajya Sabha last July.
That has forced the bill back in the Lok Sabha, where the Centre has since been attempting to re-introduce an amended version of the bill. It will now be introduced in the upcoming monsoon session, set to begin from 18 July.