New Delhi: Both the Congress and BJP have been loudly championing the causes of the Other Backward Classes, or OBC, in their respective campaigns, but this is not reflected in either of their candidate lists, an analysis by ThePrint shows.
While the Congress has made a proposed caste census, largely focused on the OBCs, one of its main poll planks, only 23 percent of the party’s candidates belong to the community—a little less than 1 out of 4.
The BJP, which has consistently leveraged Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s OBC background to make considerable inroads with the community, has fared only slightly better. Only 27 percent of its candidates are OBCs—a little more than 1 out of 4.
In terms of actual numbers, out of the 441 candidates declared by the BJP so far, 119 are OBCs. For the Congress, 76 out of the 328 candidates come into this category.
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Congress & BJP on an OBC offensive
The term “OBC” refers to various castes considered socially and educationally backward. But enumerating these castes has been a historically contested area.
In 1990, the VP Singh government granted OBCs a 27 percent reservation in government jobs and educational institutions based on the 1980 Mandal Commission report, which estimated the community to be 52 percent of the population. This was also the beginning of the end of the Congress’s domination of the Hindi heartland, especially in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
At the time, OBC voters, upset with Rajiv Gandhi’s opposition to the report’s implementation, shifted their allegiance to parties like the Janata Dal, leading to the rise of Mandal politics, spearheaded by leaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav, and Nitish Kumar.
Now, the Congress is going full throttle build an OBC support base through the caste census plank, with arty leader Rahul Gandhi giving a clarion call of “jiski abadi, utna haq” (as many the people, as much the share).
In its manifesto, the Congress promises a constitutional amendment to increase the 50 percent cap on reservations for SCs, STs, and OBCs. To this end, a proposed caste census to gauge the numerical and economic strength of OBCs and other castes has been dubbed as a “revolutionary” measure by Rahul Gandhi.
“The first step is a caste census along with an economic survey and it will ascertain who possesses how much wealth in the country,” Gandhi announced in a Delhi rally earlier this month. “They say that they have almost 50 percent of the population but they do not know how much wealth they have. We are going to conduct a caste census and the OBCs will know how much they have in different fields and the truth will come out.”
He added that OBCs are being “fooled” and that the distribution of wealth in the country must be made known. He emphasised that the caste survey will bring this information to light and a new politics will begin of people demanding their 50 percent “hissedari”.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been leading the BJP’s counter to the Congress’s OBC push.
During an election rally in Madhya Pradesh last month, Modi described the Congress as the “biggest enemy” of the OBCs, accusing them of snatching away the community’s rights.
#WATCH | Madhya Pradesh | Addressing a public meeting in Sagar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi says, “Congress is the biggest enemy of OBC section who has taken away the rights of OBC. Congress has killed social justice, hurt the sentiment of the Constitution and humiliated… pic.twitter.com/Wp7HVXIrgK
— ANI (@ANI) April 24, 2024
“Congress has killed social justice, hurt the sentiment of the Constitution, and humiliated Babasaheb,” he said. “The tricks that you are using in the states to take away the reservations of Dalits, OBCs and Adivasis, the game that you are playing, to stop this game for once and forever… I belong to this section of society, hence I know this pain and I will protect you (OBCs).”
Similarly at an Agra rally, the PM said that the Congress’s actual gameplan was to “steal from the OBC quota” to provide reservations based on religion. “The policy of appeasement divided the country but we are ending tushtikaran (appeasement) and working for santushtikaran (satisfying people),” he said.
The Mandal Commission estimated OBC population at 52 percent based on the 1932 caste census. However, a National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) survey in 2006 put the OBC population in the country at 40.94 percent.
Rhetoric vs representation
For all their claims of wanting to give the OBCs their rightful share in resources, both parties’ candidate lists don’t reflect their rhetoric.
The BJP has fielded 46 percent of candidates from the general category, while the Congress has 37 percent. This indicates that although both parties court the OBC vote bank, they predominantly nominate candidates from the general castes.
However, the Congress has done slightly better than the BJP in nominating candidates from disadvantaged and minority communities. While the BJP has only 2.3 percent minority candidates, the Congress has 9.15 percent.
In terms of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes, the Congress has fielded 17.7 percent and 13.4 percent respectively, compared to the BJP’s 15.14 percent and 9.5 percent. However, these candidates have largely been fielded from reserved seats.
Despite OBCs making up around half of India’s population, per the Mandal Report’s findings, their underrepresentation in politics is the norm rather than the exception.
In a 2023 research report in the Economic and Political Weekly, Ajit Kumar Singh takes a deep dive into whether there’s a case for political reservation for OBCs in Parliament and state assemblies.
He notes that only 21.7 percent of MPs elected in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections were from OBC category, with a marginal increase to 22.8 percent five years later in 2019.
According to him, OBCs have not been able to secure representation in elected bodies proportionate to their numerical strength due to the “entrenched social and economic inequalities in society”, particularly the caste hierarchy.
“Upper castes, who had the monopoly of wealth and power and were better educated, dominated the Indian political scene, especially in the first four decades after independence,” he writes.
Singh goes on to advocate for political reservation for OBCs.
“Real political power lies in the hands of the elected representatives who form policy. Bureaucracy only plays a subordinate role in this regard,” he writes. “What is needed, therefore, is that backward and marginalised communities are given a proper share in the higher policymaking institutions like state assemblies and Parliament.”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
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