MP polls: Congress' strident pitch for caste census has no takers on the ground

Yet, this perceptible pivot of the Congress’s campaign finds little resonance in the electoral rhetoric of the party’s candidates, including those seeking victory in seats with a majority population of backward communities; the bloc that caste enumeration would supposedly please the most. Instead, what dominates the poll pitch of Congress candidates are the predictable swipes at their rivals, criticism of the incumbent Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government’s “misrule” and the Congress’s populist poll pledges for farmer loan write-offs, electricity bill waivers, cash grants for women and the girl child, and, on occasion, even Nath’s dream of floating a Madhya Pradesh team in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

No traction for caste survey poll push

The disconnect in the communication strategy is vaguely reminiscent of the Congress’s 2019 Lok Sabha poll campaign when Rahul Gandhi had made alleged corruption in the Rafale fighter jet deal a key election plank but, following his party’s rout, lamented that he had no backers among his colleagues and party candidates for his line of attack. Congress sources point out that it was precisely to avoid a re-run of the Rafale embarrassment that Kharge had convened a meeting of the party’s highest decision-making body, the Congress Working Committee, in September to get a unanimous endorsement for the party’s stand on pushing for a caste census.

However, while the CWC resolution of September 16 unequivocally backed caste enumeration paving way for the Congress high command to, thereon, stridently push for its inclusion as a key promise in its poll manifestos for the ongoing round of assembly elections, there is evidently little traction for the emotive plank among the party’s candidates.

Complicated issue

Several Congress candidates from OBC-dominated constituencies that fall under MP’s Malwa, Nimar and Gwalior-Chambal regions told The Federal that though they are “fully committed” to the party’s promise for a caste survey, they see the issue as a “complicated one” to be explained to voters in an election. A multiple-term Congress MLA, who is again in the electoral fray said curtly, “Ram Mandir thodi hai jo voter ekdum samajh jayega”, alluding to the fact that a caste census is not like the BJP’s Ram Mandir issue which needed no explanations before an electorate.

A Congress candidate from one of the assembly segments in OBC-dominated Raisen district told The Federal, “in an assembly election, it is important to first address local issues that are of immediate importance within a constituency and then issues of the state take over... at a constituency level, voters don’t expect their candidate to spend a lot of time talking about big picture policy issues like caste census, instead they want you to tell them how you will improve their daily lives – will you get a school or college built, will you get the roads fixed, will you bring industry for employment... our national leaders can talk about caste census because they have to present a vision of governance but a candidate needs to stay focused on constituency-related issues, local caste arithmetic, etc.”

A prominent OBC leader who is among the Congress’s star campaigners for the MP elections conceded that he “steers clear” of the caste census when he is addressing corner meetings and gatherings in a constituency.

“Caste census, as Rahul Gandhi says, is a revolutionary idea for ensuring social justice... but we have to be practical; in many assembly seats across MP, the Brahmins and Thakurs still hold sway over the final poll outcome even if numerically they are outnumbered by (backward caste) Yadavs, Kurmis or Lodhis. If a candidate talks too much about caste census, the Brahmins, Thakurs and other upper castes will consolidate behind the BJP, which also gets a lot of OBC votes because of its social engineering and its own OBC leaders like Narendra Modi and Shivraj... so, while caste census may be part of our manifesto, hard-selling it in the campaign can be counter-productive,” said the leader, a former Lok Sabha member from MP.

Not going to swing election result

Interestingly, several people The Federal spoke to in OBC-dominated constituencies also backed the view that high reliance on caste census would not yield any major electoral gains for the Congress even as they asserted that “if they (the Congress) win, they must do it (caste survey)”. In the Ichhawar assembly segment of Sehore district, Sukhlal Patel, a farm worker, said he is all for a caste census but felt “it is not an issue that can swing the election result”.

“If the Congress wins, it must do a caste census so that backward castes get benefits but right now, caste census is not a big issue... this election is about other issues, like problem of farmers, (lack of) jobs and price rise,” Patel said, adding, “may be if the Congress wins and gives some benefit based on caste census, then in the next election Congress will get huge support from backward castes”.

In the Mandhata assembly segment of Khandwa, another district with a substantial population of different OBCs, Raju Malviya, a motor mechanic believes Congress candidates are right in not going overboard with the caste census pitch. The rationale behind Malviya’s observation, perhaps, vindicates the view shared by the Congress leaders quoted above.

Malviya says the merits of a caste census are lost on him. “Bas sankhya pata chal jayegi (we will know our numbers)”, he says while asking rhetorically, “will caste census make any real change in society... will Brahmins start sharing meals with people of lower caste or will government start listening to us”.

Bhopal-based political commentator Girija Shankar says, “the problem with using caste census as an election plank is that nobody really knows how to sell the idea to the voters; Rahul Gandhi explained it by saying caste census will help with proportional representation so does that mean backward castes that are numerically small will not get representation, or upper castes who are small in number but big in terms of their current share in government will be removed from their jobs... even within backward castes, there are dominant groups that oppress other castes; so will caste census change that”.

Shankar adds, “there are so many layers to a caste census which makes it a very complicated poll promise; for candidates in an election, it is always best to stick to issues that voter understands in few words like we used to say in the old days, roti, kapda aur makaan... caste census, once conducted, will certainly give electoral dividends to whichever party gets it done but at this stage, when even the party promising it doesn’t know what data will come out and how it has to be used, it is not an election-winning promise... the Congress must stick to local issues, BJP’s failures and keep caste census for Lok Sabha elections because by then, if the party wins in the presently poll-bound states, it could have at least started work on caste survey”.