OBCs: The key to the BJP’s electoral strategy in Uttar Pradesh
Why has a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member of the legislative assembly (MLA) from Gorakhpur — whose name was in the frame for the likely state cabinet expansion in August — started adding “Sainthwar” to his name as the elections approach? Why has former Uttarakhand governor, BJP national vice-president, and party’s prominent Dalit face, Baby Rani Maurya added “Jatav” to her name?
Almost all observers agree that in preparations for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh (UP) assembly elections, the BJP is far ahead of its challengers. The Opposition is divided and lacks a well-oiled machinery. Yet, despite starting from a position of strength, the BJP is nervous. It fears that it will lose many seats in western UP because of the farmers’ agitation.
To counter this, it is trying to increase its appeal among different caste constituencies and is focussing its efforts on eastern UP. Office-bearers of the BJP’s Scheduled Caste and Backward Classes front reported that, over the last few months, intense caste calculations took place and resulted in numerous organisational changes.
The BJP is particularly targeting non-Yadav Other Backward
Classes (OBC) voters. The recent efforts to seal an alliance with the Nishad Party and the Apna Dal are just a few indicators.
The BJP’s success in state politics is a result of synchronising the grand narrative of Hindutva and the micromanagement of caste equations at the ground level. Since 2014, the party has realised the electoral importance of the numerically large, but fragmented, OBC bloc for the party’s future in the state.
In fact, the party has long striven to increase its penetration among the backward castes. While efforts in this direction began in the 1960s under the leadership of the Jan Sangh leader, Deendayal Upadhyaya, the BJP tried to woo OBCs through the recently deceased Kalyan Singh in western UP, and Uma Bharati in Bundelkhand in the 1980s. Second-rank leaders, such as Om Prakash Singh and Vinay Katiyar in eastern UP, were at the forefront of the party organisation as a demonstration to OBCs that the party was well aware of the aspirations of castes other than the Yadavs.
There was a change in strategy after Amit Shah took charge of the BJP in 2014. There was a marked increase in “micromanagement”, with responsibilities assigned to the rank and file. He reorganised the constituent units of the party along with the parliamentary constituency, assembly constituency, district circles, and mandal in wards and villages. The aim was to focus on every voting booth. With more than 140,000 booth committees with 21 members per booth, the party has built a solid structure of committed workers in the state.
The caste calculus is the key consideration for appointments at the booth level. In rural constituencies, the BJP targets the gram pradhan (elected village head) and the former pradhan for managing the caste equation. The BJP keeps a record of phone numbers and other contact details of panchayat functionaries so that voters of every class and caste of the village can be covered.
District-level party functionaries acknowledge that the middle class is unhappy because of price inflation, but the party has mobilised caste at the grassroots to the extent that it has become a party of rural aspiration. Welfare schemes have helped too.
The BJP slogan of sabka saath, sabka vikas will continue to be the overarching theme alongside caste calculations. The Opposition — especially the Samajwadi Party and the Congress — seems to be finally beginning their campaigns. We must wait for another turn of the wheel of democracy to know who will have the last laugh.