BJP banks on OBC votes to counter Patidar rebellion
RAJKOT/JAMNAGAR/DWARKA: The Bharatiya Janata Party is convinced Other Backward Classes or OBCs hold the key to it retaining Gujarat, a state it has governed for the past 22 years.
There ali sat ion has come even as the party faces what some experts see as its toughest challenge in the state in two decades: an alliance of the economically dominant Patidar community with the Congress, which is also banking on support from Dalits; farmers hard-hitby the agrarian crisis; and small traders upset at the prospect of having to pay tax under the new Goods and Services Tax regime.
The Patidars were once supporters of the B JP, but the primarily agrarian community is seeing its fortunes fade( as, indeed, are dominant agrarian commu- nities across India), and wants reservation (anamat in local lin go) for government jobs and in colleges. The Pat ida rs account for around 12% of Gujarat’s population and could influence the outcome in around 60 of the 182 assembly constituencies in the state.
The Congress has backed the Patidar demand, although its way of facilitating the quota without falling afoul of a Supreme Court ruling that caps reservations at 50% could yet fail legal scrutiny.
Sentiment sin the Pat id ar community are running high. S cars of a violent police crackdown on young Patidar agitators in 2015 are still fresh in the minds of the seven elderly Pat ida rs this writer encounter sin J ab alp ur village in Tan kara assembly constituency of Morbi district. “We have to teach the B JP a lesson ,” one says. The others agree.
“Is it a crime to ask for better education and employment prospects?” another asks.
But the equation isn’t a straightforward one and the B JP plans to leverage that.
Other backward communities are apprehensive – the fear of sharing reservation benefits with the affluent community is palpable among the socially and economically backwards of Gujarat.
“Aren’ tthey (Patidar) well off? They have business, land and everything.
Why should they limit the scope for our kids? If Patidars get reservation benefits, they will corner most of the benefits, leaving nothing for our sons and daughters,” says Devji Bhai of Mokhana village in Jamnagar Rural assembly constituency.
He is an Ahir, or a Yadav equivalent of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The community has sizeable presence in Jamnagar and Dwarka, the fabled city of Lord Krishna. The sentiment reverberates in several parts of this region -- louder at some, subtle at many.
In Uttar Pradesh earlier this year, a consolidation of the backward communities did wonders for the BJP – the country’s most populous state that it won with a three-fourth majority.
THE ARITHMETIC
OBCs account for over 40% of Gujarat’s population, more than three times that of the Patidars. The backward classes have been almost equally divided between theBJP and the Congress inpast elections. This election could be different, say experts, especially if their fear tilts the balance in favour of the BJP even by few counts.
The electoral gains would be much more than the loss that Patidars could inflict.