With 8 out of 15 candidates, OBCs dominate BJP’s 1st list
Leaders from the Other Backward Classes (OBC) dominated the first list of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates in Rajasthan, with eight out of the 15 names declared on March 2 belonging to the community, which political observers see as counter to the Congress’s bid to garner the OBC support through promise of a caste-based census at the national level.
Of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan, BJP has declared candidates on 15 seats.
The caste balance is visible in the first list with focus on OBC, especially the Jat community, which shares the major vote share. The BJP gave eight of 15 tickets to OBC, of which five are from Jat community whereas Brahmin, Vaishya and Rajput communities have been given a chance on one seat each. In total there are three upper caste candidates, and two each to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe.
The Jat candidates fielded are Devendra Jhanjhadiya from Churu, a para Olympian and new face on the seat; Jyoti Mirdha from Pali, Union minister Kailash Choudhary from Barmer, Sumdhanand Sarasvati
from Sikar; and Dushyant Singh from Jhalawar.
In Rajasthan, Jat community is the biggest vote bank with over 12% of votes across the state. The other OBC candidates in the list are Bhupendra Yadav from Alwar, PP Choudhary from Pali and Lumbaram Choudhary from Jalore. The party is yet to decide candidates on 10 seats,
where 2- 3 more tickets are expected to be given to the OBC.
Political analyst Narayan Bareth said BJP is defensive after making a Brahmin chief minister. “The BJP is trying to neutralise the Congress charges related to OBC. Besides another reason is an attempt to neutralise the farmer agitation due to which a big chunk is resented, where Jat
community hold the major share of vote bank,” he said.
Another expert Manish Godha believes that BJP is trying to counter Congress rhetoric of caste census and OBC reservation. Jat is biggest vote bank in the state.
Apart from OBC the BJP has focused on its core vote bank of Rajputs, Brahmins and Vaishya communities of the general category. This includes Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat from Jodhpur, party state president CP Joshi from Chittorgarh and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla from Kota.
Two tickets each have been given to SC-ST candidates for these categories — Union minister Arjun Meghwal from Bikaner Ramswaroop Koli from Bharatpur Mahendra Jeet Singh Malviya from Banswara and Manna Lal Rawat from Udaipur.
Commenting on it, BJP leader Laxmikant Bharadwaj said, “BJP is a party which takes every caste and community together. The party receives and supported by a large number of vote share from the OBC community.”
Congress leader Swarnim Chaturvedi said the resentment has started brewing in BJP and the those denied have started expressing it. “The issues cannot be resolved by giving tickets…the farmers issue of remains unattended be it the minimum support price.”
The BJP in its first list retained eight sitting MPs and gave tickets to new faces on seven seats, including Jyoti Mirdha and Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya, who lately joined from Congress.