Rapid land acquisition for industrialisation and aversion of the Muslim community to the government because of economic deprivation have been pinpointed by the Marxists as two reasons for the debacle they suffered in the recent Lok Sabha elections. And the CPM has already started taking corrective measures in these two areas in view of the Assembly elections slated for 2011.

While the government has gone slow on the question of land acquisition, it has taken upon the task of getting as many groups of Muslim community as possible in the category of Other Backward Castes (OBCs) so that they have reservation in government jobs. A meeting was held at the Writers’ Buildings on Monday to find out ways on how to do it. The meeting, which was attended by senior officials of various departments of the government, was presided over by Minister of State for Minorities Development and Madrasah Education Abdus Sattar.

Seven per cent of government jobs are reserved for the OBCs. At present out of 2.4 crore Muslim population in the state, 11 castes which amount to 2.4 per cent of the population have been declared OBCs.

The government is following the model set by Kerala where more than 99 per cent of the Muslim population are OBCs. In fact, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee advocated the idea for reservation of Muslims about eight years ago when Andhra Pradesh first introduced quota for Muslims in the state. But when the Andhra Pradesh High Court struck it down, Bhattacharjee too backtracked. “Some Muslim groups have applied for OBC status to the Backward Class Commission and we have told the commission to expedite the applications,” Abdus Sattar said after the meeting.

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