Amit Shah’s Backward Class CM for Telangana Announcement Is Social Empowerment, Not Political Rhetoric. Here’s Why

Union Minister of Home Affairs and Cooperation Amit Shah at his rally in Suryapet on Friday announced that if elected to form the government in Telangana, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will have a Chief Minister from the Backward Class (BC) community.

This is a big announcement as the BJP typically does not make declarations for the post of a Chief Minister prior to the election results being announced. The BJP is also generally believed to have the credibility to pull off whatever it promises.

Unlike the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) supremo K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR) who promised to make a person from the Scheduled Caste (SC) community the Chief Minister if elected to power, but reneged on it, the BJP does not indulge in such electoral gimmicks.

National parties rarely have such leeway. Unless of course it is the Congress.

THE CONGRESS WAY

In various surveys done across the nation, the Congress’s promise of a caste census as a vehicle for social justice has no takers. Most view this as a way to break the coalition of Hindu voters spanning caste and community lines that the BJP has built rather than a genuine attempt at political and social empowerment. This announcement therefore is a larger national strategy that aims to call out the sheer dishonesty and mendacity in the Congress-led alliance’s promise.

FROM UNION COUNCIL OF MINISTERS TO CANDIDATES, NUMBERS SPEAK

The BJP’s commitment to ensure adequate political representation is already there as proof in the Union Council of Ministers of the Modi-led government. The Council of Ministers comprises 27 OBC and 12 Scheduled Caste ministers, which makes it one of the most diverse Councils of Ministers of all time.

On October 22, the Bharatiya Janata Party released the first list of MLA candidates for 52 out of the total 119 constituencies in Telangana for the upcoming assembly election. Of the 52, 38 were general category seats and the BJP allotted 20 of these seats to backward classes — a staggering 52%. The other 14 were reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and therefore need to be allotted to the respective communities as per the delimitation of constituencies.

Therefore, this goes beyond political rhetoric and is a genuine attempt at social empowerment keeping the national picture in mind.