Taking a cue from Bihar, the Samajwadi Party is mulling the pursuance of an aggressive caste card for mobilising the OBCs in the 2017 UP Assembly elections.
Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had dropped clear hint of the party’s agenda for 2017, saying that the grand alliance’s triumph in Bihar was a lesson for OBCs and the upper castes are losing sleep over the rise of the backwards. He had also pointed out that the OBCs who make up for 54 percent of the population are being ruled by those who have a mneagre 8 percent demographic share.
``What Netaji had said while addressing the meeting of the MBCs on November 24, was in the context of Bihar polls. The state is likely to witness a four-cornered contest in 2017 as against the bipolar contest in Bihar. For shoring up support, the SP may go in for alliance with smaller parties like Apna Dal, Kaumi Ekta Dal and even with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya lok Dal’, said a SP leader.
“The aim of the exercise is to stitch together a winning combine which can fetch us at least 30 percent votes in 2017. In the 2014 lok Sabha polls, we polled nearly 20 percent and the party needs an additional 10 percent votes. We are a regional party and can not fight national parties on the plank of development. So, we have to go back to our core agenda of `social justice’ which media portrays as caste politics. Social justice is an all encompassing model which is inclusive unlike Narendra Modi’s `Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’,” said a SP leader. In 2012 UP assembly elections, SP had polled 29.15 percent of votes and won 224seats.
The SP is buoyed by the Bihar polls results where the secular grand alliance reaped rich dividends by focussing on OBCs by fielding 70 percent candidates from the social bloc and limiting the representation of upper caste to merely 16 percent as per their demographic share. The BJP lost badly in Bihar where it had given 40 percent tickets to the upper castes.
The SP backed by RJD, JD (U) and others is set to demand the publication of data of caste-based census during the previous UPA regime in the Parliament.
``Espousing the cause of OBCs may sound like the SP is borrowing a leaf from the BSP which had given the slogan `Jiski Jitni Sankhya Bhari, Uski Utnee Bhagedari’. We are left with no option but to increasingly field OBCs and MBCs. This would consolidate our core vote bank of OBCs and Muslims and then we can go for alliance with smaller parties. This may lead to reduction in number of tickets to upper caste candidates,’’ said a former minister of SP. In 2012, SP had fielded 42 brahmin candidates and 22 had won.