Nearly six months after providing reservation for the backward communities of Haryana in the panchayat polls, the Manohar Lal Khattar-led government has now moved to ensure backward quota in the urban local body polls too. The elections to some key civic bodies of the state, such as the municipal corporations of Gurgaon, Faridabad and Manesar, besides several smaller municipalities are slated to take place in the coming months. Of a total of 78 communities listed as Backward Classes (BC) in Haryana, 72 have been put in the Backward Classes-A (BC-A) category, which will get quota in the civic bodies in the wake of the Khattar government’s decision. The remaining six castes form the BC-B group. Accepting the report submitted by the Haryana Backward Classes Commission, headed by former Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Darshan Singh, the Khattar Cabinet Monday cleared quota for the BC-A in the state's civic bodies. The Cabinet decided that “Eight per cent of the number of offices of Mayors/Presidents shall be reserved for the backward classes Block-A of citizens in the Municipal Corporations, Municipal Councils and Municipal Committees. It shall be rounded off to the next higher integer in case the decimal value is 0.5 or more”. The BJP-JJP government decided to reserve councillors' seats for the BC-A in civic bodies in proportion to half of their population percentage there. It also decided that every municipal body shall have at least one councillor belonging to the BC-A if its population is not less than two per cent of the total population of the urban local body. Haryana Assembly Deputy Speaker Ranbir Singh Gangwa, a backward community leader of the BJP, called the Khattar government’s move “historic”. “We are thankful to CM Khattar for taking such a decision in which political reservation has been given – for the panchayat polls first and now for the civic body polls for the underprivileged communities,” Gangwa said. Hoping that the BJP will get “more support” from backward communities following this decision, Gangwa claimed, “BC-A was already with the party (BJP), now 100 per cent of them will strengthen the party organisation.” The Congress, however, brushed aside the Khattar government’s move as an “eyewash”. It was aimed at “misleading” the people to gain their votes, charged a senior backward leader of the Congress, Lal Bahadur Khowal. Terming the quota cleared for the BC-A in the civic bodies “inadequate”, Khowal said: “They have not done anything great by giving quota of just eight per cent in the municipal polls because the people from BC-A were already getting this much representation in the local body elections. To be fair, they should have given at least 16 per cent quota to BC-A.” Explaining his stand, Khowal, the chairman of the Haryana Congress’s legal cell, said, “There is already 27 per cent reservation for Backward Classes in the government jobs in Haryana following the recommendations of Mandal Commission. Out of this, as much as 16 per cent are meant for the BC-A leaving the remaining 11 per cent for the BC-B category. The Haryana government should have at least opted for this maths while extending reservation facility to the BC-A in civic body polls.” He also alleged that the BJP-JJP government has tried to “divide” the backward communities by extending reservation to only BC-A and leaving BC-B without any quota in the urban local bodies. Kumhars, Jangras (Khati), Sain Samaj (Nai) and Panchals are among the BC-A communities, while Yadav (Ahir), Saini and Gujjar are included in the BC-B category. In the absence of a caste census, the exact BC population is not known in Haryana, but state Congress president Udai Bhan claims that the reservation provided by the Khattar government for the BC for the civic body polls is less than their population. "It should be in proportion to the population of the communities concerned. Their (BJP-JJP government) intentions are not genuine," Bhan charged. In recent years, Haryana politics has seen various parties stepping up their moves to boost their caste equations. The dominant community in Haryana is Jat, whose large section is perceived to be supporting the Congress whose tallest state leader, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the Leader of the Opposition and ex-CM, is considered a Jat stalwart. The Congress camp believes that the BJP might be looking to consolidate the non-Jat communities by extending the quota benefit in the civic bodies to the BC-A, but it “would not help the saffron party much”. Khowal said the BJP did not get “any advantage despite giving similar reservation to BC-A for panchayat polls in November 2022 because it was too inadequate”. Out of over 400 Zila Parishad members’ wards, the BJP contested 102 seats on its symbol, but could win only 22. The Congress had not contested the panchayat election on the party symbol. Gangwa however maintained that the Khattar government has taken the right decision, adding “new doors have been opened by extending the political reservation to the underprivileged communities". “The people from the backward classes would also be free to contest for the general category seats like they used to do earlier. These eight per cent seats for Mayors/Presidents would be exclusively for the backward community members,” he said. The Haryana Backward Classes Commission conducted “the dedicated empirical inquiry for the assessment of political backwardness of the Backward Classes of citizens”. In its report submitted to the state government on May 5, the Commission found that “the Backward Classes, Block-A are not adequately represented in the political setup, thus they require support of reservation in election of the local bodies/ municipalities for adequate participation in the grassroots democratic setup”. Earlier, announcing the formation of the panel, the Khattar government had stated the panel would study the social, educational and economic conditions of the backward classes, and their representation and participation in the government as well as in government schemes, especially students.
