Class-caste dilemma in politics for Oppn, BJP

Two important political events in the past month highlight the ongoing political counter-strategising against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) within the Opposition ranks. On August 23, an all-party delegation from Bihar met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demand a caste census. The event saw rare bonhomie between foes-turned-friends-turned-foes Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav. There is good reason to believe that the demand for a caste census is aimed at pushing for breaching the existing 50% cap on reservations and increase the 27% quota for Other Backward Classes (OBCS).

On September 5, hundreds of thousands of farmers assembled for a mahapanchayat in Muzaffarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh. Addressing the gathering, Rakesh Singh Tikait, son of the late Mahendra Singh Tikait, went beyond the issue of repealing the three farm laws, a demand that has triggered large-scale farmer protests in the Green Revolution belt of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. He attacked the government over its latest reform policies such as the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), disinvestment of public sector units, and plans to introduce tariff reforms in electricity and water. Tikait also underlined the need for communal harmony in strengthening the farm protest, using the slogan of Allahu Akbar-har Har Mahadav (Muslim and Hindu religious slogans) popular in the heydays of Tikait Sr. The choice of the location, Muzaffarnagar, was symbolic in itself, given the fact that the polarisation after 2013 riots in this district and adjoining areas generated massive tailwinds for the BJP in 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Both these strategies are aimed at chipping away significant sections of the BJP’S support base.