The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Rajasthan is reportedly planning a review of 14 Muslim groups included in its Other Backward Castes (OBC) list, the state’s social justice and empowerment minister Avinash Gehlot said on Saturday.

Avinash Gehlot stated that previous Congress governments provided OBC reservations to Muslim castes from 1997 to 2013 as part of appeasement politics, and now it will undergo a review.

“The Congress government granted those reservations to those 14 Muslim communities under the OBC category between 1997 and 2013 based on their appeasement politics. Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, in his constitution, said that nobody can grant a reservation to a particular community based on their religion. We have all those circulars and therefore we will review it,” said Gehlot while speaking to the reporters in Jaipur.

During the ongoing general elections, the BJP has brought attention to the reservations granted to Muslims, arguing that these reservations were unlawfully granted at the expense of deserving Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and other OBCs.

On Wednesday, the Calcutta High Court revoked the OBC certificates of 77 communities in West Bengal, with 75 of them being Muslim communities.

Citing illegitimacy in the classification process of those communities under the OBC category by the West Bengal government, the court said, “Identification of the classes in the aid community as OBCs for electoral gains would leave them at the mercy of the political establishment concerned and may defeat and deny other rights. Such reservation is, therefore, also an affront to Democracy and the Constitution of India as a whole.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking at a poll rally in Uttar Pradesh’s Dwarka on the same day, referred to the Calcutta High Court verdict as a "tight slap" to the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in West Bengal.

“Just today, the Calcutta high court has given a big slap to this INDIA alliance. The court has cancelled all OBC certificates issued since 2010. Why? Because the West Bengal government issued unwarranted OBC certificates to Muslims just because of the vote bank. They have crossed every limit in their obsession with appeasement,” he said.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said, “The Banerjee-led government in West Bengal granted OBC reservation to around 118 Muslim communities without following any proper process and conducting a proper survey to identify the backward classes. People went to the court and taking cognisance of the matter, the high court scrapped those certificates issued between 2010 and 2024. I welcome the verdict. She (CM Banerjee) wants to give reservation to the Muslims instead of the deserving OBCs only to keep her vote bank intact.”

On Thursday, Rajasthan CM Bhajan Lal Sharma said, “The verdict had put an end to Banerjee’s appeasement politics as our Constitution doesn’t permit such religion-based reservation.”

Gehlot on Thursday claimed the department received many complaints over such “religion-based reservation” from the public in the last few months. “It’s high time to review those complaints. A high-level committee will be formed to verify them,” he said.

Rajasthan offers a total reservation of 64%, with 21% allocated for OBCs, 16% for Scheduled Castes (SC) categories, 12% for Scheduled Tribe (ST) categories, 10% for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), and 5% for Most Backward Classes (MBC).

According to the website of the Rajasthan Social Justice and Empowerment Department (SJED), a total of 82 communities are listed under the OBC category in Rajasthan, out of which approximately 29 are Muslim communities.

In response to Gehlot’s statement, Congress spokesperson Swarnim Chaturvedi said that the decision was politically motivated. He highlighted that it was the BJP government that endorsed reservations for these Muslim communities under OBC between 1997 and 2013, and the Congress government simply continued this practice based on the Mandal Commission report of 1990.

Image source: Hindustan Times