With elections to assemblies in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi fast approaching and all eyes on the next Lok Sabha elections, the Supreme Court ruling on reservations in central institutions of higher education must have left all political parties counting their gains. Ironically, while the first ‘messiah’ of OBCs could not cash in on the fallout of Mandal I, the second self-styled messiah, Arjun Singh, also seems all set to fade from active politics. But the Congress has suddenly discovered virtue in Arjun Singh’s reservation proposal.

But if we ignore the politically correct noises made by various political players, who stands to gain? Will the Congress benefit from this ruling?

Historically, OBC communities have kept their distance from the Congress in most parts of the country. In fact, the silent disenchantment of the OBCs first took an electoral toll on Congress fortunes in 1977. Today’s Congress carries this legacy of long-term mutual suspicion between the OBCs and the party. Even three decades after 1977, the Congress still finds it difficult to set its foot in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar comfortably.

In Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, the Congress did have a base among the OBCs, under Devraj Urs and Kamaraj respectively, but the internal struggles within the party frittered away this legacy. The mid-nineties saw the rise of small state-based parties that exploited the OBC issue much more effectively at the state level and at the same time pushed the broader claims of OBCs at the all-India level. As we know, the Congress could never come to terms with these parties mostly because its state level base was directly at odds with these emerging sections in Indian politics. This led to two developments: large sections of OBC voters turned to the BJP in the mid-nineties and some state-level parties with an OBC base also joined the BJP in forming the national government. Fatigued by its sheer isolation, the Congress started redefining its strategy vis-à-vis these smaller parties and also on the OBCs.

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