Rajbhar or otherwise, the names don’t matter, but the point is to let the ‘backwards’ take the lead
Is it a coincidence that the state presidents of all the major parties in Uttar Pradesh namely, Bharatiya Janata Party, Samajwadi Party, and Congress belong to the backward castes, or is it a compulsion that has pushed all the major players in UP to woo the backwards by projecting them as state presidents? It is a political reality that the party which will be able to garner the maximum support from the backwards will win Uttar Pradesh. The BJP state president, Swatantra Dev Singh, and the Samajwadi Party state president, Naresh Uttam, are Kurmi, an influential backward caste after Yadavs. The Congress state president, Ajay Kumar Lallu, is a Senthwar, another backward caste.
The results of the 2017 assembly elections and the 2019 general elections show the importance of the votes of the backwards in UP politics. "The BJP was able to win these elections only because it was able to stitch a social alliance between its core, upper caste, and middle-class base and the intermediary castes, constituting more than 50 per cent of the state's electorate," Nomita P Kumar of Giri Institute of Development Studies in Lucknow said. The forthcoming electoral battle in Uttar Pradeshrepresents a matter of survival for the four major players. After the BJP fared poorly in the West Bengal assembly elections and got a drubbing in the state Panchayat polls, a message went down the political corridors that it is losing its sheen. A loss in UP would intensify the pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and that could prove detrimental to the party in the 2024 elections.
Senior BJP leaders confirm that the RSS and the BJP leadership haveasked senior leaders to contest the elections. The Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, and Deputy Chief Minister, Dr Dinesh Sharma, who are members of the Upper House, will contest from Gorakhpur and Lucknow, respectively. For the Samajwadi Party it is a fight for its relevance. It secured only five seats in the 2014 general elections. It lost the 2017 assembly elections despite an alliance with Congress. In 2019, it lost again when it had an alliance with BSP. The party lost these elections under Akhilesh Yadav's leadership. There are reports that Akhilesh Yadav is not willing to forge an alliance with big parties but is ready to share seats with smaller caste-based parties. Samajwadi Party has almost finalized an alliance with the Mahan Dal, a small caste-based party that is popular among the backward Maurya, Kushwaha, and Saini castes. On the other hand, BJP too has started putting its house in order. Sanjay Nishad of Nishad Party and Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal (S) recently met Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The meeting is considered crucial in the backdrop of backward politics and BJP losing the Rajbhar support after Om Prakash Rajbhar of Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party walked out of the National Democratic Alliance.
Rajbhar has formed 'Bhagidari Sankalp Morcha' - a conglomeration of small parties and the front will field candidates in the 2022 assembly elections. The Morcha includes Babu Singh Kushwaha's Jan Adhikar Party, Krishna Patel's Apna Dal, Prem Chandra Prajapati's BhagidariAndolan Manch, Baburam Pal's National Uday Party, Ram Sagar Bind's Bharat Mata Party, Ram Karan Kashyap's Bharatiya Vanchit Samaj Party, Anil Chauhan's Janata Kranti Party and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen of Asaduddin Owaisi. Arun Rajbhar, son of Om Prakash Rajbhar, said that the Morcha will emerge as the king-maker. "We have the support of Backwards, MBCs, and Muslims. This is a very potent force which has the potential to topple the apple cart of big parties," he said.
(The writer is Executive Director (News), The Pioneer, Lucknow. The views expressed are personal.)