Caste Cauldron
BJP’s social coalition vs Oppn’s OBC card
Union home minister Amit Shah has called a meeting on Monday of party leaders from all states to discuss the government’s newly launched scheme - PM Vishwakarma. According to sources, the BJP plans to aggressively woo the smaller castes among the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) by using the PM Vishwakarma scheme through which crores of blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, artisans, etc will be given loans, training and market support.
The Vishwakarma scheme is seen as the BJP’s answer to the opposition’s shrill campaign for social justice for the OBCs. The opposition parties have been demanding a nationwide caste census to find out the real number of people belonging to the OBCs to help better targeting of welfare schemes. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has conducted a state-level caste survey and released the report earlier this month. The caste cauldron is on the boil. Social justice has emerged as a major issue in the runup to the Lok Sabha elections. Shah’s meeting with state leaders is taking place against this backdrop.
The BJP may organise meetings in every district of the country with groups of Vishwakarmas - the people who work with hands and tools. The PM Vishwakarma scheme will go hand in hand with the government’s plan to release the Rohini Commission report on the sub-categorisation of the OBCs. The BJP’s plan is clear: it seeks to create a new social coalition of OBC castes that have failed to benefit from the reservations provided for them. Rohini Commission has reportedly found that the benefits of reservation have been cornered by about a dozen dominant castes out of nearly 3,000 categorised as OBCs. The BJP has now trained its guns on these marginalised castes.
Battle of Cow Belt
Kharge, INC top brass may contest from UP
There is an old political saying that the road to Delhi goes through Uttar Pradesh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recognised this age-old wisdom and contested from the holy city of Varanasi in UP. This helped the BJP sweep India’s largest state and gain a comfortable majority in the Lok Sabha. It is now the turn of opposition parties to focus on Uttar Pradesh.
According to sources, the Congress is planning to field its big guns from UP in the next Lok Sabha elections. There is talk of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge being fielded from the state. Sources said Kharge may contest from the Nagina Lok Sabha constituency in western UP. Nagina seat is reserved for the Scheduled Castes. SCs and Muslims constitute almost three-fourths of the total electorate with SCs accounting for around 21 per cent and Muslims around 50 per cent.
The seat has been won mostly by Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party in the past. Congress insiders feel that the decline of the BSP and the possibility of an alliance between the SP and Congress makes Nagina a low-hanging fruit. Sources said Congress plans to deploy a large part of its resources in UP with the aim to repeat its 2009 performance when it won 21 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Looks like the battle for 2024 will be fought in Uttar Pradesh.