When Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented his new cabinet early this month, the inclusion of 12 Dalit and 27 Other Backward Class (OBC) ministers was highlighted. The social composition of his team was a message to the backward and Dalit castes ahead of crucial elections in seven states, particularly Uttar Pradesh.
Now, as the countdown to the elections has begun, the Modi government decided to provide 27 per cent reservation for OBCs and 10 per cent reservation for the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) in the All India Quota (AIQ) scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental courses. The decision, however, comes after a nudge from the Madras High Court which had last year decided that the OBC quota should be there in the All India Quota for medical seats. It had noted with concern in its hearing this month that the Centre had not implemented the reservation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has now taken political ownership of the decision as his government announced OBC reservation for MBBS, MD, MS, BDS, MDS degrees from the current academic year 2021-22 onwards.
BJP and allied party MPs had met Modi on July 19 demanding the same. The move will help the BJP and its alliance partners like JDU and Apna Dal—whose social base comes from the OBCs—in states with significant OBC populations.
This decision will annually benefit nearly 1,500 OBC students in MBBS and 2,500 OBC students in post-graduation, as well as 550 Economically Weaker Section (EWS) students in MBBS and around 1,000 EWS students in post-graduation.
The current decision will provide the BJP with an effective pitch to woo the OBC community in the upcoming elections. Plus, as the government has given 10 per cent EWS quota, this is also expected to benefit the poor among the upper castes.
On Wednesday and Thursday, BJP chief J.P. Nadda held meetings with party members from Uttar Pradesh in Delhi and asked them to reach out to the people of their constituencies as parliament session ends. MPs will be tasked with spreading the word about the new reservation benefits for marginalised communities that hold a key to government formation in the state.
The Uttar Pradesh elections are expected to be keenly contested ones as Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's governance record will be a key election issue. Yogi had claimed to have given an effective and clean administration, but some of the key castes appeared to have been miffed at being left out.
On the opposite camp are parties like BSP, Congress and the Samajwadi Party, which are likely to contest polls separately. As the last panchayat elections indicated, the Samajwadi Party, with its stronghold among the OBCs(particularly the Yadavs) has been recovering lost ground.
The BJP's focus is to rally most of the non-Yadav OBCs in the state behind it as many of these communities have been given representation in the union cabinet. Among the OBCs, it was the Yadavs under the Samajwadi Party rule who had benefited. So, the BJP's outreach is aimed at non-Yadav OBCs, and non-Jatav Dalits to form a bouquet of castes in its kitty.
While the reservation provides an immediate election pitch in assembly elections next year, Modi too will see political dividends from a huge chunk of beneficiaries of this reservation policy when elections are held in 2024. Every year, 4,000 OBC students will get admission in medical colleges. All these medical students will be first-time voters, along with over 15 lakh aspirants every year. A huge constituency of middle-class voters will get impacted directly by this government decision.
Background
The All India Quota (AIQ) scheme was introduced in 1986 under the directions of the Supreme Court to provide for domicile-free merit-based opportunities to students from any state to aspire to study in a good medical college located in another State. The All India Quota consists of 15 per cent of the total available UG seats and 50 per cent of total available PG seats in government medical colleges. Initially, there was no reservation in AIQ Scheme up to 2007.
In 2007, the Supreme Court introduced reservation of 15 per cent for SCs and 7.5 per cent for STs in the AIQ Scheme. When the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act became effective in 2007 providing for uniform 27 per cent reservation to OBCs, the same was implemented in all the Central Educational Institutions like Safdarjung Hospital, Lady Harding Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University and Banaras Hindu University. However, this was not extended to the AIQ seats of State medical and dental colleges.
This was challenged by many parties, particularly by the DMK in the Madras High Court, while another case was filed by Saloni Kumari in the Supreme Court.