Two years after the term of National Commission for Other Backward Classes (NCBC) got over, the Central Government has set up a new commission appointing Bhagwan Lal Sahni, a BJP leader from Bihar's Muzaffarpur, as its new chairman. Shahni assumed charge on Friday.
BJP leader and former Varanasi mayor Kaushalendra Singh Patel, BJP national secretary and former MP Sudha Yadav from Haryana, and Telangana BJP general secretary Achary Talloju have been appointed as members of the commission. President Ram Nath Kovind approved their names on Thursday.
Sahni, who belongs to Nishad community, had contested Lok Sabha polls against former Defence Minister George Fernandes on Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) ticket in 2004. He has close links with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).
The NCBC was given constitutional status by Parliament last year, after repealing the National Commission for Backward Classes Act, 1993. The Constitution (123rd Amendment) Bill, 2017 was passed after heated exchanges in Parliament during which several members urged the Centre to make public the findings of the caste census and implement reservation accordingly. The bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on August 2, 2018 superseding the amendments earlier carried out by the Rajya Sabha.
The NCBC, which until now only had only a recommendatory role on the issue of inclusion or exclusion of a community in the Central list of OBCs, will now have all powers of a civil court when it comes to handling complaints and welfare measures for socially and educationally backward classes. Until now, the NCSC, which handles such cases with regards to Dalits, was also in charge of looking into similar complaints of rights violations of people belonging to backward classes.
The term of the last NCBC chairperson, Justice V Eswaraiah (retd), got over in September 2016, while that of its last member expired by February 2017.
