The Justice G Rohini Commission submitted the report on the sub-categorisation of the Other Backward Castes (OBCs) to President in 2023. The Commission was constituted in 2017. Last year, the Supreme Court allowed the states to sub-classify reservations within the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. The apex court verdict is now a sub-categorisation lamppost for the BJP.
The BJP is testing the political heft of sub-categorisation of reservation in states. The saffron outfit is now close to getting convinced that the politics of OBC is an emerging threat for the BJP. To checkmate the challenge, the fragmentation of the OBC identity aligns with the larger RSS aim for the consolidation of Hindus.
The BJP will aim for dilution of the political heft of dominant OBC castes in state politics. The resurgence of the M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) combination in Bihar has the BJP-JD (U) worried. The BJP lost a majority of its own in the Lok Sabha in the 2024 general elections after the Samajwadi Party took the pole position in Uttar Pradesh.
Not admitting to the emergence of identity politics would have taken the BJP on a path of self-denial. The BJP leaders believe that Bhagwat sensitised Modi to deal with the challenge urgently.
(The author is a Delhi-based political journalist, who for over two decades worked for The New Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle, The Asian Age, and The Statesman. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.))