Gurugram: When Union Home Minister Amit Shah addressed a Backward Classes Samman Samaroh at Mahendragarh on Tuesday, he announced the Nayab Saini-led BJP government’s decision to hike the income creamy layer limit for OBCs (Other Backward Classes) from Rs 6 lakh to Rs 8 lakh annually in Haryana.
Though the decision was taken at a Cabinet meeting on 23 June, Shah flashed a copy of the gazette notification at the rally. The document shows 16 July, the date of the Mahendragarh rally, as the date of notification. It also stated that salary and income from agriculture would not be included in this limit, benefiting thousands of people.
Shah announced another decision that increased the OBC quota in panchayats, municipal corporations, and municipalities. Previously, there was an 8 percent reservation for the BC-A category in Panchayati Raj institutions. An additional 5 percent quota will now be provided for the BC-B category. Similarly, the existing 8 percent reservation for the BC-A category in urban local bodies will be supplemented by a new 5 percent quota for the BC-B category.
Ever since the Modi government came to power in 2014, the BJP has been projecting itself as a champion for the cause of backward classes and the OBCs. In Haryana, the BJP began its OBC push in October last year when the party replaced its Jat state president O.P. Dhankar with Nayab Saini, an OBC. Saini went on to replace CM Manohar Lal Khattar, a Punjabi, in March.
Having lost five out of 10 Parliamentary seats in Haryana, the BJP now wants to make sure that its OBC vote bank doesn’t move away in the assembly polls and hence these largesses.
Opposition take
Six-time Congress MLA Captain Ajay Yadav, a prominent OBC leader himself, said that the BJP’s move of increasing the income limit was nothing new because the Centre had already fixed Rs. 8 lakh for the creamy layer.
“The BJP government has rather inflicted a huge loss to the OBCs by keeping them away from their benefits all these years by reducing the creamy layer limit in Haryana. Khattar was responsible for it and also for adding income from salary and agriculture to the income for the purpose of eligibility, thereby excluding a large majority of OBCs from the benefits,” Yadav alleged.
He said that the Mandal Commission never said that the income from salary and agriculture would be included in the family income of the OBCs for the purpose of quota.
“The biggest demand of the OBCs is to hold a caste census because we know we are 52 percent in population and we are not getting representation and share in jobs as per our population. But the BJP never agrees to hold the caste census because the Modi government knows its lies would be exposed,” he added.
Former chief minister and Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda said that the BJP’s so- called OBC approach is merely for the purpose of building a narrative as the party has “a history of deceiving” SC-OBC communities after securing their votes.
Hooda told ThePrint that since 2014, the BJP has consistently undermined the reservation, rights, and welfare schemes for Dalits and backward classes.
The Khattar government, in deviation from the policy at the central level, reduced the creamy layer limit from Rs 8 lakh to Rs 6 lakh, which resulted in many backward-class individuals losing reservation benefits, he alleged.
“Our party raised this issue both in the streets and in the assembly, but the government did not address it. Now, ahead of elections, the BJP is claiming to increase the creamy layer limit to Rs 8 lakh in an attempt to mislead OBCs. Rather than patting its back, the BJP government should apologise to the backward classes for its previous actions rather than seeking their votes,” the Congress leader demanded.
He also criticised the use of Haryana Kaushal Rozgar Nigam for job recruitment when the government doesn’t follow reservation policy mandated under the Constitution. Hooda pointed out that there was a backlog of 2 lakh posts, including thousands for OBCs, but the government wasn’t showing any intention to clear it.
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Was creamy layer limit lowered?
The information available on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes Department’s website shows that the Khattar government issued a notification on 17 August, 2016, setting a creamy layer for Haryana.
“The children of persons having gross annual income of up to Rs 3 lakh shall first of all get the benefit of reservation in services and admission in educational institutions. The left-out quota shall go to that class of Backward Classes of citizens who earn more than Rs 3 lakh but up to Rs 6 lakh per annum. The sections earning above Rs 6 lakh per annum shall be considered as Creamy Layer under Section 5 of the said Act,” said the notification.
Through another notification issued on 28 August 2018, the government decided that for the purpose of computing annual income of a person for deciding the creamy layer under the 2016 notification, the income from all sources should be included in it.
In contrast, through its office memorandum dated 13 September 2017, the Centre raised the creamy layer limit from Rs. 6 lakh to Rs. 8 lakh.
Prof Jagrup Sekhon of Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, said that ever since the BJP came to power under Modi, it has been observed that the party has always been making efforts to exploit fault lines within the society to come to power.
“When a party plays divisive politics, it is always short-lived and doesn’t work in the long run. The 2024 elections have shown that neither caste politics nor the attempt to divide people on religious lines worked for the BJP. In the last assembly election, the BJP successfully created a narrative of Jat versus non-Jat as the 2016 Jat quota violence was fresh. The party knows that it won’t work this time. Hence, it started playing OBC politics as the elections started drawing closer,” the political science professor told The Print.
Sekhon said that Haryana is a very important state for the Modi government and losing it would mean the wiping out of the BJP from the North-West. “The ruling party doesn’t have its own government in Delhi, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh and it doesn’t have any hope from Jammu and Kashmir. Losing Haryana means the party won’t have a presence in the North-West,” he explained.
“Haryana is also important for the BJP because it covers Delhi from three directions. The Modi government uses Haryana to prevent farm protesters from Punjab from coming to Delhi. In February, it managed to stop farmers at the Shambhu border in Ambala and Khanauri border in Jind. If Haryana slips out of the BJP’s hands, a Congress government isn’t going to oblige the Modi government by stopping them at the expense of inviting the ire of the farming community.”
Losing Haryana would also have an impact on BJP’s grip on western Uttar Pradesh, Sekhon. added.
The BJP though has Rajasthan and Uttarakhand in the region.
Biggest chunk of votes
Mahabir Jaglan, a political analyst, said that the OBC is the biggest chunk of votes in Haryana and with farmers (read Jats) and the Dalits going against the BJP in the parliamentary polls, the ruling party seems to be making all efforts to have a firm grip on the OBCs.
Jaglan said that another reason why the BJP is going overboard to appease the OBCs is that the party’s leadership seems wary of recent statements by six-time MP Rao Inderjit Singh who is miffed with his MoS status in Modi Cabinet.
“Yadavs are the largest community among the OBCs. Since 2014, they have been regularly voting for BJP giving it a majority of seats in Gurugram, Rewari, and Mahendragarh. However, with the Gurgaon MP making his bitterness known, the BJP doesn’t want to take any chances with the OBCs,” said Jaglan.
Another political analyst Satish Tyagi said that the BJP’s OBC push is being witnessed not just in Haryana but across the country.
“A caste survey in Bihar in 2022 came out with findings that the OBC population is 63 percent. Though no caste census data was available for Haryana, the Gurnam Singh Commission set up in 1990 had put the OBC population at 30 percent,” he told The Print.
He said that in the absence of any caste census data, the Commission relied on the caste-wise number of MLAs elected in the 1987 elections, research conducted in the universities, and the data of the last caste census held in 1931 available in the public domain.
He said that since the findings were not based on any census and survey, the 2022 caste survey in Bihar hints that the actual number of OBCs in Haryana could also be much more than the 30 percent as being considered so far.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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