Bhopal, Nov 5 — The Congress has appointed former Sabalgarh MLA Baijnath Kushwaha as the chairman of its Other Backward Classes (OBC) Department in Madhya Pradesh, replacing sitting Satna MLA Siddharth Kushwaha.
The organisational change comes as the party seeks to strengthen its outreach among OBC communities ahead of the 2028 Assembly elections, amid renewed political debate over reservation and representation in the state.
The party has also appointed Rajendra Mandaloi from Bhopal and Pawan Patel from Satna as vice-chairpersons of the state OBC Department. The appointments were approved by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and announced by party general secretary K.C. Venugopal.
In its official communication, the party said the Congress president had approved the appointments of the state chairperson and vice-chairpersons with immediate effect.
Baijnath Kushwaha represented the Sabalgarh Assembly constituency in Morena district from 2018 to 2023. He won the seat on a Congress ticket in the 2018 Assembly elections but lost to BJP candidate Sarla Rawat in the 2023 polls.
He began his political career through student politics in 1984 and later worked with the Bahujan Samaj Party before joining the Congress in 2014.
He has also served as a general secretary of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee. The appointments come at a time when OBC reservation has emerged as a major political issue in Madhya Pradesh, where the community constitutes a significant section of the electorate.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court recently struck down the 2019 law that increased OBC reservation in government jobs and educational institutions from 14 per cent to 27 per cent.
The court restored the existing 14 per cent quota and directed the state to fill 13 per cent of posts kept on hold under the disputed reservation arrangement from the unreserved category within three months.
The 27 per cent quota was introduced by the then Congress government led by Kamal Nath in 2019. However, its implementation remained caught in legal proceedings, with the additional 13 per cent reservation kept on hold.
Both the Congress and the ruling BJP have sought to position themselves as supporters of OBC rights and social justice, making reservation and political representation important issues in the state's politics.