The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
NDA, INDIA play micro caste game but 1 +1 isn’t always 2
The BJP has reached out to small groups, but RJD is deploying the strategy too
VOTING ON APRIL 19
WHILE THE BJP banks on its Narendra Modi card and the Opposition INDIA bloc frames its campaign around "saving democracy”, voters in South Bihar, wherepollingwillbeheld on April 19, largely deploy caste to spell out their choices.
The BJP began its outreach to individual groups a decade ago. In the NDA, Kushwahas have a representation in BJP state president and Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, as well as BJP ally Upendra Kushwaha. Kurmis have been brought into the umbrella through the JD(U)'S Nitish Kumar. Dusadhs are seen to be looking at the BJP after it made space for LJP (Ramvilas) leader Chirag Paswan, while Musahars have a representation in former Bihar CM and HAMS leader Jitan Ram Manjhi.
However, this time, there is a change in approach of the RJD, which has for long been identified with only two groups, Muslims and Yadavs. Under Tejashwi Yadav, it has started reaching out too.
The entry of Mukesh Sahani's Vikassheel Insaan Party, and its base among the Mallahs, into the INDIA is a bonus, as is the OBC and Dalit support which the RJD’S ally CPI (ML) Liberation still commands.
The RJD’S candidate list reflects its new approach. For example, the party has fielded four Kushwahas in the 23 seats it is contesting – the BJP has none on its symbol in the 17 it is fighting.
In the first phase, the RJD’S Kushwaha candidates are Abhay Kumar Kushwaha in Aurangabad,
and Shravan Kushwaha in Nawada. From Gaya, a reserved seat, the RJD has fielded a Paswan, Kumar Sarvajeet Paswan, hoping to draw some of the Paswan vote.
Manjhi has lost the last three Lok Sabha elections from Gaya – last two times to the BJP, in 2014 as a JD(U) candidate and in 2019 as an ally of the RJD and Congress. This time, he hopes to add the BJP’S traditional upper caste votes to his own Musahar votes and a chunk of Paswan votes.
However, on the ground, it is
not that simple. In the Paswanheavy Vakilganj village, loyalties lie with Chirag Paswan, the son of their biggest leader, Ram Vilas Paswan. Among the village’s 48 households, almost all Paswan, there is a consensus on voting for the NDA because of Chirag, while the four Yadav households swear by the RJD.
In Aurangabad, the RJD seems to be having more of a success in its Kushwaha arithmetic. In what was seen as an easy seat for the BJP, which has re-fielded its three-time MP Sushil Kumar Singh, a Rajput, the RJD has gone with Abhay Kumar Kushwaha.
Kushwahasalsohaveasignificant presence here apart from Yadavs, though Rajputs are the single largest group and the dominant caste.
In the Kushwaha-dominated Gaura village in Aurangabad, and in Dhanu Bigha that has both Yadavs and Kushwahas in large numbers, the RJD appears to have succeeded in projecting the fight as a chance to end “Rajputs’ sense of entitlement over the district”. They claim that the sitting MP ignores Kushwaha villages.
A BJP leader admitted on condition of anonymity: "The Kushwahas are not voting as a solidvotebankfortheparty.they are voting for candidates.”
In Nawada, a Bhumihar-dominated constituency, the BJP has fielded former Union minister C P Thakur’s son Vivek.
Here too, the key may be the upper caste vote in general and the Bhumihar vote in particular, which is solidly behind the BJP.
“We were wth Modi and will remain with Modi. Unhone duniya ka sab kucch hum logon ko laa kar dikha diya hai 10 saal mein(he has brought us everything that the world has to offer in the past 10 years),” says Ajay Mishra of Phulma village.
What hasn’t changed, in Mishra’s view of things, is the caste dynamic -- the upper castes with the BJP and the Yadavs and Muslims with the RJD.
What about Kushwahas? Mishra smiles: Unka humko nahin pataa (I don’t know about them).”