BJP plays quota card in UP, Maharashtra to consolidate Dalit, OBC votes
Party tries to gain back trust of SC, ST voters in UP by painting INDIA bloc as the ‘true villain’; pitches hike in ‘non-creamy’ layer income hike in Maharashtra to woo OBCs
More than four months after the BJP’s below par electoral performance in the Lok Sabha polls, the ruling party is going back to the drawing board to find solutions to some of the challenges it faced during the General Elections. Primary on its to-do list has been to woo back disgruntled Dalit voters in Uttar Pradesh and reaching out to the OBC in Maharashtra by increasing the ‘non-creamy’ layer income limit.
Lok Sabha disaster
For the first time in a decade, the BJP failed to get a majority on its own in the Lok Sabha. The failure was attributed to the party’s poor show in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, the two states where BJP and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) lost a considerable number of seats.
Although the BJP leadership hoped that the consecration ceremony at the Ram temple in Ayodhya and the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi would help it win majority seats in Uttar Pradesh, the sentiments didn’t reflect in the poll results which turned out to be the party’s worst performance since it rode to power in 2014.
To further check its downward slide in the two states and anticipating a strong fight from the Opposition in the upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra and the by-elections in Uttar Pradesh, the senior leadership of the party has decided to expand its social base in these states.
Dalit outreach in Uttar Pradesh
While lack of coordination with the members of the Sangh Parivar and complacency were among the reasons responsible for BJP’s poor show in the Lok Sabha elections, senior leaders of the party believe that the opposition parties successfully convinced the people, especially Scheduled Castes (SC) and Schedules Tribe (ST), that the NDA had set the target of winning more than 400 seats because it wanted to change the Constitution.
In a bid to correct course and win back the lost voters from these communities, the BJP has begun touching base with members of the SC communities in Uttar Pradesh through its membership drive.
Bid to break narratives, build new ones
“The biggest challenge for the BJP was that the opposition parties started a false narrative that the decision of NDA to win more than 400 seats was to change the Constitution. So now when we work with the SC community during our membership drive, there is an extra effort to tell the people that it was the Samajwadi Party (SP) that opposed reservation in promotions and tore the Bill in Parliament during the session in 2012 that allowed reservation in promotions. It is important for us to remind the people that Congress has aligned with a party that is opposed to giving benefits of reservation to the SC community and people should not believe in the promises made by Congress and the SP alliance,” Ramchandra Kannujia, chief of BJP’s SC Morcha in Uttar Pradesh, told The Federal.
SC sub-quota implementation in Haryana
While there is an attempt by the BJP to paint SP as anti-reservationist, the BJP has also organised nationwide protests against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s recent statement on reservation during his visit to the US. Despite Rahul’s clarification that he wants to increase reservation has not stopped the saffron party to drop the diatribes against him.
Buoyed by its performance in Haryana and to consolidate its position among the SC community, the new BJP government in the state has decided to implement the recent Supreme Court order of allowing sub-categorisation within SC reservation. While the issue of sub-categorisation within the SC reservation has created differences between BJP and some of the alliance partners, there is support for the Supreme Court decision within the BJP.
Maharashtra: Consolidation of OBC votes
Ahead of the polls, the saffron party is also striving to bolster its outreach among the Other Backward Classes (OBC) community.
Just days before the announcement of the polls, the state government of Maharashtra under Chief Minister Eknath Shinde urged the Union government to increase the income limit for people desiring to avail benefits for ‘non-creamy layer’ from the current limit of Rs 8 lakh to Rs 15 lakh per year so that the benefits of reservation can reach to a greater number of people.
“The popularity of the prime minister and his OBC identity help the BJP reach out to people from the community. It is fair to say that the OBC community is at the centre of the decision making within the BJP leadership, both at the national level and also in states. While nationalism is the central theme of BJP and there is an attempt by the government that its programmes reach all communities, the OBC community is at the centre of decision making whether in government, party organisation, social support base and also in the membership drive of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh,” Narendra Kashyap, a senior minister in Uttar Pradesh government, told The Federal.
While the BJP is relying on its membership drive to expand its social base in Uttar Pradesh, it is hoping that its recent move in Maharashtra to increase the limit for non-creamy layer will help it consolidate the OBC votes in its favour.
‘Desperate last-minute moves’, say political analysts
Senior leaders of the BJP are of the opinion that the party suffered in Lok Sabha polls because it could not balance the demand for Maratha reservation and the opposition from the OBC community against it.
Political analysts believe that the decision of the BJP to demand an increase in the limit for non-creamy layer and also to try and create perception that SP opposed reservation in promotions in 2012 are desperate moves before the elections.
“People these days are able to sense desperation in political parties and both the moves of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh of blaming SP of being against reservation and demanding an increase in non-creamy layer limit are signs of desperation. These moves are too close to the elections to make an impact or drastically change the narrative. There is another challenge for the BJP because if the party talks too much about reservation, then there is fear of losing the Hindutva voter base and middle class voters, so it is important for BJP to be careful about the narrative it wants to build before the polls,” Amit Dholakia, political science professor at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, told The Federal.