National Commission for Backward Classes Chairperson Hansraj Gangaram Ahir on April 24 said the Commission is going to summon the Chief Secretary of the Karnataka government over the State’s categorisation of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) quota, which provides for “blanket reservation” to Muslims under Category II-B.
The statement has come when 14 constituencies in Karnataka are scheduled to vote in the Lok Sabha election on April 26.
Mr. Ahir said the Commission has been evaluating OBC reservations in Karnataka and in its correspondence with the State government it found that it listed Muslims under Category II-B of the OBC categorisation.
“This happened to be in addition to the 17 Muslim castes in Category I and 19 Muslim castes in Category II-A. We understand that there are many castes within Muslims that need to be included in the OBC category. However, we do not understand why there is a separate category just for Muslims,” Mr. Ahir told The Hindu, adding that the State’s replies in this regard were not satisfactory.
Officials of the Commission said the Karnataka government had not been providing full information as sought by the NCBC.
In February, the Karnataka government had justified the presence of Muslims under Category II-B in a letter to the NCBC. In the letter, the State government clarified that for this purpose, they are considering Muslims and Christians as neither caste nor religion but as backward classes, as recommended by various Commissions formed by the State government.
However, Mr. Ahir on Wednesday questioned the validity of the reports based on which the entire Muslim community had been declared as backward in the State. “The State government is yet to provide a full report of a current survey that supports the classification of Muslims as backward,” he said, adding that the Commission is looking to examine these reports.
The NCBC went on to cite postgraduate medical admissions in Karnataka in 2021-22 and 2022-23 to assert that Muslims in the State were being “over-represented” because of such a categorisation within the OBC quota, which Mr. Ahir said “is eating into the share that should be available to other OBC communities, including Muslims”.
The NCBC Chairperson, who had last year raised a similar problem with the OBC list of West Bengal, said, “In Bengal too, a majority of the communities included in the OBC list happen to be Muslim. How is that possible?”
Mr. Ahir said the problem could be further compounded because a lot of these communities would want to be included in the Central list as well. “So, we have to make sure that they belong in this category and that requires current survey reports.”
The Commission has also flagged concerns that Karnataka’s OBC categorisation allows for all Muslims to contest from any OBC or General category seat in local body elections, which is feared to be depriving other deserving OBC communities the space to do so.
