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Journalism of Courage
The recent move of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the BJP to reach out to backward classes indicates that caste, which so far has not been considered a factor in Odisha’s electoral politics, is likely to dominate the political discourse ahead of the elections next year.
While the Naveen Patnaik government is preparing to conduct a survey of the social and educational conditions of people belonging to the backward classes, the BJP is planning to visit villages to make the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) aware of their rights and campaign about how they are allegedly being deprived in Odisha.
Though the BJD government decided to conduct the survey in May and June 2021, the plan was postponed due to the surge of the second wave of Covid-19. The government’s fresh push to conduct the survey, and the BJP’s OBC outreach, have political implications as these come a year before the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. Though the formal survey has not happened yet, unofficial sources say OBCs comprise around 54 per cent of the state’s population.
While the BJP’s OBC wing launched a “Gao Gao Chalo, Ghar Ghar Chalo” campaign across India on April 6 — it will run till April 14, the birth anniversary of Dr B R Ambedkar — against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s “remarks against OBCs”, the Odisha unit of the BJP has decided to extend it by two months.
“The ruling party in Odisha has cheated the backward classes. The BJD claims to have provided adequate representation to OBC candidates in the party but does not provide any reservation in jobs and education. People will be made aware of these facts. They will give a befitting reply to the BJD,” said state BJP’s OBC cell president Surath Biswal.
The OBC wing’s decision came close on the heels of the selection of Manmohan Samal, a grassroots OBC face, as the state BJP president. The saffron party believes that the appointment of Samal will help the BJP shore up OBC support.
The saffron party’s OBC outreach programme is likely to be held in parallel to the backward classes survey, which the Odisha government has decided to carry out across the state from May 1 to May 27. The survey will be completed by July 12.
Justifying the survey, Odisha’s SC/ST Development and Backward Classes Welfare Minister Jagannath Saraka recently said that collecting accurate data on OBCs was crucial for effective policy formulation and to ensure their constitutional rights.
“The BJP has been wooing the OBC community across the country, including Odisha. It’s part of the strategy of their central leadership. Even though caste equations don’t matter so much in Odisha, we don’t want to take any chance. After completion of the backward classes survey, the state government is likely to announce some plan for them,” said a senior BJD leader, requesting anonymity.
In a written reply on July 26, 2022, Union Minister of State for Home Nityananda Rai informed the Lok Sabha that states such as Odisha, Bihar, and Maharashtra had requested the Centre to collect caste details in the (2021) Census.
Not receiving a positive response from the Centre, the Odisha government had, in February 2020, amended the Odisha State Commission for Backward Classes (OSCBC) Act to empower the Commission to conduct a survey of people belonging to backward classes. The OSCBC identified 209 communities in Odisha as socially and educationally backward classes (SEBC). Recently, the state Cabinet approved the inclusion of 22 more castes in the state OBC list, taking the number to 231. These SEBCs enjoy 11.25 per cent reservation in government jobs, although there is no reservation for them in education.
In February 2009, the Patnaik government had ensured 27 per cent reservation for SEBC communities in government jobs by enacting a law. Accordingly, a recruitment advertisement in 2011 earmarked 27 per cent quota for the backward classes. The Odisha Administrative Tribunal in December 2013 quashed the law since 27% reservation to SEBCs would take the total quota ceiling to 65.25 per cent. The government reduced the SEBC quota to 11.25 per cent in June 2014.
