Congress ‘deceives’ OBCs, treats them only as vote bank, says BJP

Union Minister Bhupender Yadav addresses a press conference, in New Delhi, Monday, June 16, 2025. | Photo Credit: PTI

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday (June 16, 2025) accused the Congress of “always deceiving” the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and treating them only as a “vote bank”, stating that the decision to conduct a fresh caste survey in Karnataka was driven by the motive of “electoral engineering”.

At a press conference, Union Minister and BJP leader Bhupender Yadav sought to fix responsibility for the expenditure of about ₹165 crore on the first caste survey, which was initiated in 2015 and its report submitted in 2024. He alleged that there were several issues with that report, which was not made public, and communal appeasement had also been done.

Mr. Yadav disputed the process being adopted for the resurvey, saying that the 90-day timeline was “unrealistic”. Citing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s remarks that the decision was not his government’s but that of the Congress leadership, he questioned the party’s “interference” in the State government’s functioning and said it was akin to the National Advisory Council’s role during the UPA regime.

Alleging that the Congress always deceived the OBCs, the Union Minister said after the Kaka Kalelkar Commission’s report, which was “suppressed”, the subsequent Congress governments did not constitute any other commission. The Mandal Commission was formed under the Janata Party rule. After the Supreme Court upheld the legality of Mandal Commission, the Congress did the work of weakening it, he alleged.

“Even now, there is no change in the Congress’s approach,” he said, alleging that the party’s objective was “electoral engineering” instead of “social justice”. “In India, OBC reservation is neutral. Then how there are Hindu OBC and Muslim OBC in Telangana? This shows that they do the politics of divide and rule,” he said.

He said under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government, the National Commission for Backward Classes got constitutional status. “We thank the Prime Minister from the bottom of our hearts that the long-pending issues, such as reservations in university posts and admissions in Central schools, as well as constitutional status to the commission for OBCs, were addressed. Because of him, owing to the economic welfare schemes, crores of people came out of poverty,” he said, adding that reservation was also given to the economically weaker sections.

On the day, the Union Government issued a notification for conducting India’s 16th Census in 2027, which will include caste enumeration, Mr. Yadav said the decision was taken after considering all the aspects and making full preparations for the same.

Responding to a query about the fresh list of OBC communities notified by the West Bengal government, he accused Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of indulging in appeasement politics. On the Opposition’s demand for increasing the 50% cap on reservation, he said the BJP believed in “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas (All together, development for all)” and its government would implement reservation as per the Constitution.

Published - June 16, 2025 10:23 pm IST