By notifying 66 teams of Different Backward Lessons (OBCs) in West Bengal, which had been included within the state’s OBC listing earlier than 2010, and abolishing their sub-categories A (extra backward) and B (extra backward). Suvendu Adhikari-led Bharatiya Janata Social gathering authorities The BJP has termed this as “Islamic appeasement” and has reversed the transfer of the earlier Mamata Banerjee authorities to incorporate a number of Muslim communities within the OBC listing.
The brand new BJP authorities has utilized a 7% OBC quota to those 66 teams, bringing the OBC reservation system within the state again to the pre-Mamata period. Mamata-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) first got here to energy in Bengal in 2011.
In 2012, the Mamata authorities handed the West Bengal Backward Lessons (Excluding Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) (Reservation of Vacancies in Service and Posts) Act, which supplied for a complete OBC reservation of 17% (10% for class A ‘extra backward’ lessons and seven% for class B ‘backward’ lessons).
This was challenged in courtroom, and in Could 2024, the Calcutta Excessive Court docket quashed a collection of orders handed by the state authorities between March 2010 and Could 2012, beneath which 77 communities, principally Muslim teams, got reservations beneath the OBC class. A division bench comprising Justice Tapavrata Chakraborty and Justice Rajasekhar Manta discovered that faith was the “sole” foundation on which the West Bengal Backward Lessons Fee and the state authorities granted reservations, that are prohibited by the Structure and courtroom orders.
The excessive courtroom canceled all OBC certificates issued by the Bengal authorities after 2010, however allowed these already recruited beneath the certificates to proceed of their jobs.
The courtroom’s order comes amid the 2024 Lok Sabha election marketing campaign, the place reservation for Muslims has grow to be a scorching concern. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Social gathering accused the opposition of making an attempt to deprive Hindus of reservations and different advantages and provides them to Muslims.
OBC issues additionally emerged as one of many key points within the Bharatiya Janata Social gathering polls, with each the Bharatiya Janata Social gathering and the opposition India Bloc accusing one another of their respective election campaigns of making an attempt to undermine the quota system.
On June 11, 2025, Suvendu, then Chief of Opposition within the Bengal Meeting (LoP), accused the Mamata authorities of turning the OBC quota in Bengal right into a “unilateral beneficiary class” quota. This got here after the TMC authorities issued a contemporary notification relating to teams getting OBC quota beneath classes A and B.
Suvendu then claimed that whereas in 2010 there have been 66 OBC castes, together with 11 Muslim teams, the Mamata authorities’s 2025 listing included 46 Muslim teams out of 51 teams in class A and 21 out of 25 teams in class B. The proportion of Muslims within the first class was 90%.
and the second at 84%, he mentioned.
“The solar will rise within the west if this reservation listing will not be created with the intention of offering ‘unilateral advantages’ solely to Muslims by intentionally disenfranchising Hindus and different communities,” he mentioned. “Now, who will profit from elevated OBC reservations? Muslims, it is easy.”
Suvendu mentioned that on December 9, 2024, the Supreme Court docket would hear the enchantment filed by the Bengal authorities in opposition to the Calcutta Excessive Court docket’s judgment and held that the reservation can’t be based mostly on faith. “The brand new listing ready by the Mamata authorities is nothing however contempt of courtroom,” he alleged.
The Nationwide Fee for Backward Lessons (NCBC), headed by former Bharatiya Janata Social gathering MP after which chairman Hansraj Ahir, had additionally flagged the difficulty, accusing the TMC authorities of accelerating the variety of Muslim castes included within the OBC listing.
In June 2025, NCBC issued a discover to the then Bengal chief secretary Manoj Pant, asking him to offer detailed data inside three days relating to the survey performed on the newly introduced OBC listing within the state. Ahir identified that a number of castes have been notified as a part of the state’s OBC listing by means of three administrative notifications dated June 3, 2025, including that the listing is predicated on a “detailed research”.
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In July 2025, the Supreme Court docket stayed the Calcutta Excessive Court docket’s June 2025 order freezing the state authorities’s revised OBC listing. Listening to the state’s enchantment difficult the Excessive Court docket’s order, the then Chief Justice of India BR Gabai, presiding over a three-judge bench, mentioned: “That is shocking. How can the Excessive Court docket proceed like this? Reservation is a part of the chief’s operate. From Indira Sawhney’s perspective, the chief can do it. We’re stunned by the Excessive Court docket’s reasoning.”
Whereas the Suvendu authorities’s transfer has now de-reserved a number of Muslim teams, the state’s whole OBC quota has additionally come down from 17% to 7%, which the opposition events might use to assault the BJP system.
