BJP focuses on Tripura; eyes TMC, CPM influx

The BJP has begun flexing its muscles in the Northeast, a region under party president Amit Shah’s radar for organisational expansion. After Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur, the party is now eyeing Tripura, a state under Left Front rule since 1993. Assembly polls in this state is due in 2018, and before that the saffron party is busy strengthening its base as well as its strength.

Over 1,000 Trinamul Congress leaders and workers have joined the BJP so far and speculation is rife that there could also be a massive exodus from the ruling CPI(M) to the BJP, which is gaining strength across the region ever since it came to power in Assam. On Thursday, 400 TMC members, including 16 of its 65 state committee members, joined the BJP in Agartala.

Besides Tripura, two other Northeast states, Meghalaya and Nagaland, will go to the polls nest year. Meghalaya is now ruled by a Congress-led coalition, while BJP ally

Rejecting the Opposition’s charge that replacing the National Commission for Backward Classes with the National Commission for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (NCSEBC) was part of the government’s “larger conspiracy” to do away with reservation to dalits, the BJP-led Central government said on Friday that it had always been a supporter of reservation to these communities, and would continue to remain so.

The chairperson of the parliamentary committee for the welfare of the OBCs, Ganesh Singh, rejected the charges, and claimed that the Narendra Modi government was committed to protecting the rights of the OBCs and to empowering them.

The Rajya Sabha witnessed a brief adjournment when the Samajwadi Party’s Ramgopal Yadav raised the issue. Without naming the RSS, he alleged that the move was guided by the philosophy of the ruling party’s “fountain head” that reservation should end, leaving the backward classes feeling cheated.

Other Opposition members supported him while SP members rushed into the Well of the House and shouted anti-government slogans, forcing deputy chairman P.J. Kurien to adjourn the proceedings for 10 minutes.

Vehemently rejecting the charge, minister for social justice and empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot said that Prime Minister Narenda Modi had repeatedly said the constitutional position of reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs would continue.

“Since the time of Jan Sangh, we have been a supporter of reservation to these communities and will continue to be a supporter,” the minister said.