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The National Commission for Backward Classes has recommended that the Union government remove 35 communities, most of them Muslim, from West Bengal’s Central Other Backward Classes list, The Hindu reported on Wednesday.

The recommendation was confirmed by the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in Parliament on Tuesday. This followed a review of 37 communities added to the list in 2014, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the newspaper reported. Of these, 35 were Muslim communities.

Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, under whose chairmanship the recommendation was made, said that the suggestion followed the commission’s scrutiny of West Bengal’s Central Other Backward Classes list “in light of a high number of Muslim communities being listed” in it.

Ahir, whose tenure as the National Commission for Backward Classes chairperson came to an end on December 1, noted that “most of the communities” identified for exclusion were Muslim. “One or two of them may be non-Muslim communities,” The Hindu quoted him as saying.

He also refused to name the communities, saying it was “a matter for the government to decide”.

The commission’s recommendation must be presented in Parliament under the 102nd Constitutional Amendment, which mandates legislative approval and presidential notification before any changes to the Central Other Backward Classes list can take effect.

However, the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has not specified when...

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