Former Sabarkantha Congress MP Madhusudan Mistry on Wednesday dashed off a letter to state party president Siddharth Patel alleging that smaller communities of Other Backward Castes (OBC) have been kept away from the decision making process. Besides, the party was also ignoring them in giving representation in various party units and tickets for the assembly, zilla parishad and local body elections, he said.

The letter was drafted and dispatched after Mistry held a meeting with about 20 Congress workers from smaller groups of OBCs and a Muslim leader at his residence in Gandhinagar today.

Mistry is scheduled to hold a bigger meeting at his Gandhinagar residence on November 3 at which he will be finalising programmes for holding meetings at the district level to mobilise the smaller groups among OBCs to what he called ‘parchuran’ or miscellaneous communities.

According to Mistry, the smaller groups among OBCs may not be sizeable in numerical strength, but have always been the backbone of the Congress. But these communities, which include groups like nomadic tribes and banjaras among others, have been totally kept out of policy making decisions. They are not given representation in any fora after CD Patel left the post of state party chief about 10 years ago, he said in his letter.

According to Mistry, even Minister of State for Energy Bharatsinh Solanki, who belongs to the OBC, had ignored the smaller OBC communities during his stint as state party chief till a year ago.

Mistry once belonged to Shankersinh Vaghela’s camp in the Congress, but has now separated and created an independent identity. In the recently concluded Maharashtra Assembly elections, he was made in-charge of 72 Assembly constituencies with former MP Chief Minister and Congress heavyweight Digvijay Singh and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Rahman Khan.

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