New Delhi: The Centre has directed the Uttar Pradesh government to stop including 17 OBC castes in the Scheduled Castes (SC) list. Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, the Union minister for social justice and empowerment Tawar Chand Gehlot said that including OBC castes in the SC list is within the domain of parliament and called the UP government’s move “unconstitutional”.
According to a report in the Indian Express, the BJP government in UP had directed officials to issue SC certificates to 17 OBC castes “after examination and based on documents in accordance with the rules” after citing a 2017 observation of the Allahabad high court.
The move comes a day after BSP chief Mayawati slammed the Adityanath government for the order.“It’s a fraud with people belonging to these 17 castes as they won’t receive the benefits of any of the categories as the UP government will not treat them as OBCs,” she said at a press conference on Monday.
Mayawati also stated that like the previous SP government, the Adityanath government passed the direction to “deceive” these castes as they would lose their benefits under the OBC category and be counted under the general category – since as per Article 341, they cannot be considered as SCs through a state order.
She reiterated her old demand to the Centre of inclusion of 17 castes into the SC list, but only through the expansion of the quota for Dalits.
Previous attempts
A June 24 letter from the UP Social Welfare Department, referring to a 2017 order of the Allahabad high court, directed district authorities to issue caste certificates as per that order after scrutiny of documents.
This is the third time that a UP state government has initiated a move to include OBC castes into the SC list. Previously, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government in 2004 had attempted to amend the UP Public Services Act to include 17 OBC castes in the SC category. However, the move was repealed by the Allahabad high court owing to the fact that the state had not consulted the Centre – which solely has the right to declare any caste as SC.
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Similarly, in 2016, the Akhilesh Yadav government had cleared a proposal to include 17 sub-castes in the SC category but the matter was rejected by the Centre.
The Adityanath government’s rationale for the move is that the 17 OBC castes figure very low on the social and economic indices and that being in the other backward class category had not improved their standard of living.
Electoral concerns
The move was intended to leave greater space in the OBC quota for the remaining caste groups. Since there is more competition among OBC groups for reservation benefits, if the 17 castes are moved to the list of SCs, they will face less competition because the SC population is smaller.
But SC groups fear that such a move might impact their quota as the new entrants will consume their share if the reservation limit is not expanded.
While the Allahabad court order came in March 2017, days after the Adityanath government assumed power, the letter was sent 27 months later – supposedly keeping in mind electoral concerns. In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP would not have liked to risk alienating the existing SC groups.
Opposition leaders have alleged that the government’s directive was aimed at making political gains in the coming by-polls to 11 assembly seats.