Bengal’s Suvendu Adhikari-led government has moved to end state assistance linked to religious categorisation from June and overhaul the Other Backward Classes reservation framework, marking one of the sharpest policy shifts since the change of power in Kolkata.
The decisions were cleared at the state cabinet meeting chaired by Adhikari at Nabanna, with minister Agnimitra Paul saying the government would discontinue schemes routed through religious categories and set up a panel to determine eligibility for quota benefits under a revised OBC framework. The move follows judicial scrutiny of Bengal’s reservation system and comes as the new administration seeks to recast welfare and affirmative action policies around legally defensible criteria rather than community-based executive classification.
Paul said assistance schemes run under departments including Information and Cultural Affairs, Minority Affairs and Madrasa Education would continue only until the end of May. From June, the government intends to stop financial or institutional support where eligibility is framed by religious identity. The decision is politically sensitive in a state where welfare schemes for religious functionaries and community institutions have long been defended by the previous Trinamool Congress administration as social support, while the Bharatiya Janata Party has attacked them as selective patronage.
The cabinet also approved the scrapping of Bengal’s existing OBC list and sub-categorisation structure after the Calcutta High Court’s May 2024 judgment struck down several post-2010 inclusions. The court had found serious flaws in the way communities were added to the list and questioned the use of religion as a decisive factor in backward-class recognition. While jobs already obtained under the earlier framework were protected, certificates issued under the invalidated process faced legal uncertainty.
A fresh inquiry panel will now examine quota eligibility. The government is expected to review communities identified in court proceedings and rework the list through a process that can withstand judicial challenge. The new exercise will be watched closely by communities whose education and employment prospects depend on OBC certification, as well as by political parties preparing for a prolonged contest over welfare, identity and constitutional safeguards.
Under the previous regime, dozens of communities were added to the OBC list after 2010 through executive orders. A large proportion of those groups belonged to Muslim sub-communities, a fact that became central to the legal and political dispute. The BJP argued that backward-class status should be determined by social and educational disadvantage, not religious affiliation. The Trinamool Congress maintained that the beneficiaries were disadvantaged occupational and social groups and accused the BJP of using the issue to polarise voters.
The Adhikari government’s approach signals a broader attempt to align Bengal’s reservation and welfare architecture with its campaign promise to remove what it described as religion-based preferences. Yet the legal path is complex. The Supreme Court has previously examined questions around whether the executive can notify OBC lists and how far courts may intervene in classification. Any new list prepared by the state will have to be supported by data, survey material and a transparent evaluation process.
The cabinet also cleared the Annapurna scheme, under which eligible women are to receive ₹3,000 a month from June 1. The scheme replaces the political centrepiece of the previous government’s women-focused cash transfer programme and expands the BJP government’s welfare pitch beyond its core ideological commitments. Paul said women who applied for citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act and those who approached tribunals for inclusion in electoral rolls after the special intensive revision exercise would also be eligible.
Free travel for women in government-run buses was also approved from next month. The measure places the new government in line with several states that have used public transport concessions to increase women’s mobility and labour-force participation, although questions remain over fiscal pressure on state transport undertakings already struggling with rising operating costs.
