Mamata woos Muslims with OBC card

May 3, 2012

Kolkata, May 3: Desperate to hold back Muslim votes in the forthcoming Panchayat elections, the West Bengal government led by the Trinamool Congress has decided to include 33 more categories in the OBC list.

According to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, will bring 99 per cent of the Muslim community in the OBC net.

“At present there are 65 communities in the OBC category and today the cabinet has taken a decision to include 33 more castes and sub-castes into the list which will bring 98 of the identified 143 castes in the state under OBC category,” Mamata Banerjee told reporters at State Headquarters Writers’ Building on Wednesday.

“This will bring 99 per cent of the Muslim community under this category,” Mamata claimed. Muslims comprise 26 per cent of the electorate of the state.

Terming the decision “historic,” she said: “We have taken the policy decision in the cabinet meeting on Wednesday. In the next Assembly session, we will bring the bill. Once the bill is passed, we will expedite the process so that the listed communities can avail the opportunities at the earliest”.

Slamming the Left Front Government, she said: “Previously the reservation for OBC in the state was 7 per cent but it was lifted to 17 per cent in 2010. The previous Left Front government to take the advantage of this and to provide scope to their party workers made haste and without making any survey included different communities into this category. We did proper survey and after careful consideration added another 33 communities. We will bring the bill in the next assembly.”

Asked about the rest 45 communities which are left outside the category, Mamata who left for Delhi on Wednesday said: “We are considering another seven or eight communities. We will decide this very soon.”

The chief minister justified her decision to provide a monthly honorarium of Rs 2,500 to Imams, a housing scheme and stipends for their children a month back.

“They are not given the honorarium considering their religion, but it is given on the basis of their socio-economic condition,” she said.

“They have a strong contribution in society. They actively participate in the social awareness programme like pulse polio and other campaigns,” she said.

“Our government equally extends our help to Ramkrishna Mission at Belur,” she justified.

Prior to Wednesday’s announcement, on April 9, Banerjee announced more sops for the Muslim community, including new loan schemes, creating an employment bank and promising official stamp on 10,000 madrasas.

The shift of minority votes from the Left Front in favour of the Trinamool Congress is one of the reasons for the electoral reverses suffered by the Left parties in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal as well as in the state Assembly polls which saw the Trinamool Congress score a landslide victory.

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Over 58 lakh names dropped from draft voter list in Bengal ahead of polls

News Network

December 16,2025

The deletion of over 58 lakh names from West Bengal’s draft electoral rolls following a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has sparked widespread concern and is likely to deepen political tensions in the poll-bound state.

According to the Election Commission, the revision exercise has identified 24 lakh voters as deceased, 19 lakh as relocated, 12 lakh as missing, and 1.3 lakh as duplicate entries. The draft list, published after the completion of the first phase of SIR, aims to remove errors and duplication from the electoral rolls.

However, the scale of deletions has raised fears that a large number of eligible voters may have been wrongly excluded. The Election Commission has said that individuals whose names are missing can file objections and seek corrections. The final voter list is scheduled to be published in February next year, after which the Assembly election announcement is expected. Notably, the last Special Intensive Revision in Bengal was conducted in 2002.

The development has intensified the political row over the SIR process. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress have strongly opposed the exercise, accusing the Centre and the Election Commission of attempting to disenfranchise lakhs of voters ahead of the elections.

Addressing a rally in Krishnanagar earlier this month, Banerjee urged people to protest if their names were removed from the voter list, alleging intimidation during elections and warning of serious consequences if voting rights were taken away.

The BJP, meanwhile, has defended the revision and accused the Trinamool Congress of politicising the issue to protect what it claims is an illegal voter base. Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari alleged that the ruling party fears losing power due to the removal of deceased, fake, and illegal voters.

The controversy comes amid earlier allegations by the Trinamool Congress that excessive work pressure during the SIR led to the deaths by suicide of some Booth Level Officers (BLOs), for which the party blamed the Election Commission. With the draft list now out, another round of political confrontation appears imminent.

As objections begin to be filed, the focus will be on whether the correction mechanism is accessible, transparent, and timely—critical factors in ensuring that no eligible voter is denied their democratic right ahead of a crucial election.

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