BJP to use EWS quota in West Bengal

Guwahati: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is preparing strategies to cash in on the legislation to consolidate Hindu votes in West Bengal ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. BJP is preparing the strategies to provide 10 percent quota for economically backward sections in general category and the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.

West Bengal has 15.2 percent of the total population of general category people in the country according to the Sinho Commission 2010 that suggested criteria for identification of economically backward classes. The largest followed by Maharashtra at 13.3 percent.

According to a source, BJP would soon finalize detailed programmes for utilizing the two legislations the Centre has taken initiative for. The party has already indicated that it would use the said bill pending before Rajya Sabha to reach out to Hindu Bangladeshi refugees.

BJP General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya said that a large section of people in the state are happy that the BJP government has taken the two steps adding that they will chart out different ways to campaign about them. He further stated that a large section of people can take benefit of the reservation for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quota in Bengal.

A source from the party said that the state has fixed 10 percent for Muslims in government jobs as there is lot of anger within the Hindu community over Muslim appeasement policies of consecutive governments and the new law on EWS could favour the party. Tribals of Jhargram and Purulia voted en masses for the BJP in the panchayat elections. This acceptability has grown in rural areas too and that the EWS quota and BJP government's attempts to regulate illegal migrants would make the electorate more optimistic about the party.

According to the source, the Joint General Secretary of BJP working with the West Bengal unit has succeeded in bringing different groups of the party and Sangh Parivar to work together and that Vijayvargiya has also managed to attract leaders like Mukul Roy earlier who was earlier with the Trinamool Congress to the party fold.

BJP has also launched a strong campaign 'Save Bengal' to garner support for Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 which aims at enlisting the support of Bengalis across the country to defeat the TMC government.

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