During the Akhilesh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh, there used to be “Yadav Thanas” because, in the Police recruitment, only Yadavs used to qualify. Now the same story is being repeated in West Bengal, where under the OBC section, the list of selected candidates consists of only Muslims with probably not a single Hindu OBC qualified under the category.
Mamta’s secular list of 50 candidates selected for the post of sub-inspector by West Bengal Police Recruitment Board.
There was a time when “Yadav thana” was very infamous in UP. pic.twitter.com/1uCqjUzHXu— Rohan Agrawal (@rohan194) June 19, 2021
This is Mamata Banerjee’s way of rewarding the Muslims, who voted overwhelmingly for the party in the 2021 assembly election, and a way of punishing Hindu OBCs who went with BJP. Mamata Banerjee’s party came to power riding on the votes of upper-caste Hindus – who voted for the party because they hate BJP given their leftist leanings – and Muslim votes.
BJP has repeatedly raised question over Muslim candidates siphoning off the benefits of OBC reservation, thanks to state patronage. The successive governments in West Bengal – whether of the Communists or Mamata Banerjee – have often ignored the Hindu OBCs while Muslim OBCs have been brought to the forefront for their benefits.
The state has a 17 per cent quota for OBCs, 10 per cent of which is reserved for Muslims. Hindu OBCs constitute more than half of the total OBC population but their quota share is less than that of the Muslims. Before the West Bengal assembly election, JP Nadda, the President of BJP, criticised Muslim appeasement by the political parties from West Bengal.
He said, “The biggest example of appeasement [in Bengal] are OBC reservations. To the OBC list were also added minorities – and in large numbers.”
“It is due to the votebank politics of appeasement that backward castes from our Hindu religion such as Mahishya and Tili have been kept away from reservations. When we come to power we will set up a commission to try and ensure that all castes identified by the Mandal Commission are included in the mainstream,” he added.
The Matua and Mahisya community, which constitute more than one-fifth of the state’s total population, are being brought forward on the political map of the state by BJP after being ignored for decades.
In the name of Communism, the upliftment of the socially marginalised communities like SC, ST, OBC has been ignored in West Bengal for decades under successive Communist and Mamata Banerjee governments.
The politics of West Bengal has always been dominated by the Bhadralok Community, which constitutes three upper castes- Brahmin, Baidya, and Kayastha. These castes account for just 20 per cent of the state’s total population. But, all the CMs of the state– whether of CPM, Congress, or TMC– have been from the Bhadralok community. OBCs, SCs, and STs never had a say in the politics of Bengal. And this was because the Communist Party never recognised the role of caste in social upliftment.
Mamata Banerjee, the CM of the state for the last nine years, ran the government just like the Communists before her. The only difference was that she carried out even a greater degree of Muslim appeasement.
The results of the West Bengal Police recruitment are an example of how blatant the Muslim appeasement is in Mamata Banerjee’s government. The so-called secular parties, take the community and caste appeasement to another level, be it, Akhilesh Yadav, in Uttar Pradesh, Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, or Hemant Soren in Jharkhand.
