The central government has informed Parliament that the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) has advised the removal of 35 castes or communities from West Bengal from the Central OBC list.
This was stated in a written reply from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to a question raised by Jagannath Sarkar, the BJP MP from Ranaghat. He had asked whether the NCBC had recommended excluding certain communities from Bengal from the central list.
According to the ministry’s reply, the West Bengal government had earlier proposed 46 castes for inclusion in the central OBC list. Out of these, 37 were added in 2014 through a Gazette notification. However, on 22 January 2025, the NCBC sent a fresh recommendation to the Centre advising that 35 of these 37 communities should now be removed from the list.
The ministry did not publicly disclose the names of the communities in the parliamentary reply. The development comes at a time when the state’s OBC classification process has already been under scrutiny, following earlier court observations regarding the inclusion criteria used by the state government.
The Centre’s statement has led to renewed political debate in West Bengal, with parties demanding clarity on the status of the affected communities and the implications for their access to central OBC benefits.