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Continuing with its welfare drive ahead of the Haryana Assembly elections, and with voters from Other Backward Classes (OBC) in mind, the BJP-led government has enhanced the OBC creamy layer annual income cap from Rs 6 lakh to Rs 8 lakh and increased reservation for the backward classes in panchayats, municipal corporations, and municipalities.
At about 30%, OBCs account for the largest chunk of voters in Haryana, followed by Jats at nearly 25%, and Scheduled Castes (SCs) at about 20%. Aiming for a third consecutive term, the BJP has pinned its hopes on its existing strategy of providing sops to OBCs. The party’s strategy of enhancing its welfare schemes and rolling out more sops to communities across the state began after the Lok Sabha election results were announced on June 4, which saw the party losing five out of 10 parliamentary seats to the Congress. It was the ruling party’s worst performance in the Lok Sabha elections in the state in a decade.
The BJP snapped ties with the Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) in March and given that the Jat votes will now be divided between it, the Bhupinder Hooda-led Congress, and the Abhay Chautala-led Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), BJP leaders feel consolidating the other communities is a more prudent strategy. “In such a scenario, it would be politically advantageous for the party to consolidate all other communities, as the BJP needs just 38-40% of the total votes to form the government,” a senior BJP leader told The Indian Express.
To ensure that the party’s activities remain on track before the poll campaign officially begins, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has already made two quick visits to the state in the last fortnight, both of which saw announcements being made for OBCs. During his June 29 visit to Panchkula, Shah announced that incumbent Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini — an OBC who replaced Manohar Lal Khattar, who is from the Punjabi community, as CM in March — will remain the BJP’s CM face in the Assembly polls. He followed it up with the announcement on the creamy layer cap and the increased quota in local bodies at a Backward Classes Samman Sammelan in Mahendragarh on Tuesday.
“It is not that the BJP is doing something new for the BCs (Backward Classes) now. In fact, throughout its 10-year-long tenure, it has taken several such measures for the welfare of BCs,” said Union Cabinet Minister Krishan Pal Gujjar.
Meanwhile, CM Saini said, “The Pradhan Mantri Vishwakarma Yojana, launched on September 17, 2023, is praiseworthy for its role in the development of skills among BCs. Under the leadership of PM Modi and HM Shah, the OBC Commission has been granted constitutional powers, enabling BC children to gain admission to educational institutions such as Kendriya and Navodaya Vidyalayas. Not only has the Central government worked to secure the rights of the BCs, but has also protected them.”
The party’s choice for top leadership positions from the state also reflects this strategy. While the CM is an OBC and state BJP president Mohan Lal Badoli a Brahmin, the party’s appointments to the Union Council of Ministers from the state are also from non-Jat communities: Khattar is a Khatri Punjabi while Krishan Pal Gurjar and Rao Inderjit Singh belong to OBC groups. At the event in Mahendragarh, Amit Shah also gave a shout-out to the state’s Baniya community, calling himself a “Baniye ka beta (the son of Baniyas)”.
An analysis of the Lok Sabha results in Haryana shows that the BJP led in urban areas of the state while the Congress led in rural areas. Reminding the work that was being done in the rural areas, Shah at the meeting named five village panchayats where the state government had spent crores on development and said BJP workers would visit all the panchayats in the state to review the work being done.
“Over the last 10 years, we spent Rs 19.54 crore on development in Brahmin Majra village, Rs 17.74 crore on Kalinga, Rs 84.33 crore on Tigaon, Rs 516.62 crore on Kariyawas, Rs 23.95 crore on Asankalan, and Rs 21.3 crore on Kharia. BJP workers will visit all 6,225 panchayats in Haryana to present an account of the development works carried out by the BJP,” Shah said before asking Saini to invite and honour members of all the panchayats.
After the parliamentary poll results, Saini handed over possession letters for 100 square yard plots each to more than 7,500 families below the poverty line, most of whom are from the Backward Classes. He then sanctioned Rs 100 crore to renovate dharmashalas and chaupals across the state for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and OBCs. Party insiders said more sops and schemes for the OBCS were likely to be announced in the coming days.
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