 "Mahendragarh: Union Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah addresses the 'Backward Class Samman Sammelan' in Mahedragarh, Haryana, Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (PTI Photo)")
Mahendragarh: Union Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah addresses the ‘Backward Class Samman Sammelan’ in Mahedragarh, Haryana, Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (PTI Photo)
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday urged Haryana’s Other Backward Classes (OBCs) to ensure a “full majority” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state, and not one that would need “crutches” to survive. The Assembly elections are due in Haryana by October.
The support from Haryana’s OBCs and upper castes is critical for the BJP if it is to fulfil its objective to form a government in the state for a third successive occasion and counter the Congress’ Jat plus Dalit consolidation, which delivered the latter five of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in the recently concluded General Elections.
Addressing a ‘Backward Classes Samman Sammelan’ in Haryana’s Mahendragarh, Shah harped on Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini’s OBC identity. He accused the Congress of being anti-backward classes and said if the party comes to power in Haryana, it will snatch the reservation from OBCs to give it to Muslims. He accused the Congress of having done the same in Karnataka. “I have not come here for a government that will have to rest on crutches. The OBC samaj has to ensure a full majority government,” he said.
Shah, on his second visit to Haryana in less than a month, lauded the Saini-led government for increasing the annual income limit for the creamy layer of OBCs from Rs 6 lakh to Rs 8 lakh last month. The chief minister had also announced that the reservation for the backward classes in Group-A and Group-B posts, currently at 15 per cent, would be increased to 27 per cent, “in line with the Central government’s policy”.
While the Centre classifies ‘socially and educationally backward classes’ collectively as OBCs (Other Backward Classes), Haryana refers to these communities as ‘backward classes’ (BCs). The BCs are sub-categorised as BC-A, comprising 72 castes, and BC-B, which are half a dozen relatively better-off castes, such as Ahirs, Gujjars and others.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress won five of the 10 seats, including two seats reserved for Scheduled Castes – Ambala and Sirsa. It also won the three Jat-dominated seats – Sonepat, Rohtak and Hisar. The BJP’s wins were in Karnal, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Bhiwani-Mahendragarh and Kurukshetra thanks to the support from OBCs and upper castes.
The BJP’s vote share dropped from 58.20 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls to 46.11 per cent in 2024. The INDIA bloc vote share was better than the BJP’s in 2024. The Opposition bloc together secured 47.61 per cent vote share, with the Congress, which contested nine seats, getting 43.67 per cent and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which contested one seat, that of Kurukshetra, bagging 3.94 per cent.
In March, weeks before the Lok Sabha polls, amid Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s demand for a nationwide caste census to ascertain the population of OBCs, the BJP had replaced Manohar Lal Khattar, a Punjabi upper caste, with Saini, an OBC, as the state’s chief minister. According to the 2011 Census, Haryana has a 19.35 per cent Scheduled Caste population. As for the rest, estimates suggest that Jats are 27 per cent, OBCs 38 per cent and the rest upper castes.
At the public meeting on Tuesday, Shah recounted that the Narendra Modi-led council of ministers has 27 Union ministers from backward classes including two from Haryana. Shah praised Saini for being accessible to people.
Responding to Congress leader and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda over the Congress’ ‘Haryana Maange Hisab’ campaign, Shah said, “Hooda sahab, you have to give an account of 10 years of misgovernance and depriving Haryana of development.” “I am the son of a Baniya, I have come with an account for every single penny,” he said.
The BJP won a simple majority on its own in the 2014 Assembly polls but fell short of a majority five years later, and ran a coalition government.
First Published: Jul 16 2024 | 7:39 PM IST
