Backward Classes panel recommends removing 35 groups, mostly Muslim, from Bengal central OBC list

The National Commission for Backward Classes has recommended that the Union government remove 35 communities , most of them Muslim, from West Bengal’s Central Other Backward Classes list, The Hindu reported on Wednesday.

The recommendation was confirmed by the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in Parliament on Tuesday. This followed a review of 37 communities added to the list in 2014, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the newspaper reported. Of these, 35 were Muslim communities.

Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, under whose chairmanship the recommendation was made, said that the suggestion followed the commission’s scrutiny of West Bengal’s Central Other Backward Classes list “in light of a high number of Muslim communities being listed” in it.

Ahir, whose tenure as the N