Basirhat:
Announcing sops for minorities ahead of panchayat elections next year in the state, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today said a survey has been ordered for ensuring job reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) among Muslims.
Backward Classes Welfare Minister Upendra Nath Biswas has been directed to ensure that the report on the survey was submitted immediately. A law would be passed in the assembly within a month.
Referring to the 10 per cent quota announced by the previous Left Front government for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) among Muslims, she said "the survey has been ordered as the reservation will have to be made legal. What the previous government did in this matter has no legal basis."
She said the new law would also have provision for ensuring higher education of boys and girls and that an employment bank would be created.
"I want more Muslim boys and girls to go for higher education and become doctors and engineers", the Chief Minister said.
Former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had announced the OBC quota for Muslims in February, 2010, acting on the recommendations of the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission.
The shift in the minority vote towards Trinamool Congress was one of the reasons for the electoral reverses suffered by Left parties in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal as well as in the state assembly polls last May which saw Trinamool Congress sweeping to power.