OBC outreach marks PM Modi, Amit Shah’s visits to Uttar Pradesh

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah’s visits to Uttar Pradesh within a span of five days were marked by an outreach to the OBCs, especially the Kurmis, less than year before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Shah was in Lucknow on July 2 and Modi visited Gorakhpur and Varanasi on July 7.

The Prime Minister walked for about 120-metres into a narrow Gorakhpur lane to visit Pankaj Chaudhary, Union minister of state who belongs to the Kurmi subcaste and apparently enjoys the trust of his community in the region, on Friday.

Before that, Shah chose a Lucknow stage set up by the Apna Dal (Sonelal), a mostly-Kurmi-based party having pockets of influence in eastern Uttar Pradesh to connect with OBC allies on July 2. The Apna Dal (Sonelal), led by Union minister Anupriya Patel, has been the BJP’s trusted ally since 2014.

“A charismatic PM as powerful as Modiji walking to an OBC minister’s residence is surely powerful symbolism. As we head closer to elections, such symbolism would increase as other leaders and parties would try and emulate the PM,” said Athar Siddiqui of the Centre of Objective Research and Development.

The focus on Kurmis, a numerically dominant non-Yadav OBC subcaste, hasn’t been without reason. Forty-one lawmakers from this caste were elected to the Uttar Pradesh assembly in the 2022 state polls, seven more than in 2017. Thirteen of these were elected on the Samajwadi Party ticket and three of them had turned giant killers by defeating key ministers, including deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, the OBC face of the U.P. BJP.

That’s why the BJP and the Samajwadi Party (SP) both vied for the Kurmis’ attention on July 2, the birth anniversary of Kurmi leader Sonelal Patel, who had founded the Apna Dal to mobilise the key backward community in east UP,

Shah shared stage with Sonelal’s daughter Union minister Anupriya Patel and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav attended a function hosted by Apna Dal (K) headed by Sonelal’s wife Krishna Patel. Modi’s walk further highlighted the BJP’s apparent desire to connect with OBCs.

BUZZ ABOUT KEY CHANGES IN U.P.

Speculation is rife that some “consultations” currently underway in Delhi would soon manifest in U.P. with some key caste groups from the state likely to be accommodated in Team Modi while others could find a place in BJP chief JP Nadda’s national team.

Another BJP leader said a woman OBC minister currently part of Team Modi, being moved to UP, in an important capacity, was a possibility to heighten the OBC impact.

“Nothing is certain yet though U.P. BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhary and deputy CM Brajesh Pathak’s back-to-back meetings with Union home minister Amit Shah on July 2 and 3 in Lucknow and Delhi indicate towards a possible rejig. The nature of it remains unclear,” a BJP leader said.

Some BJP leaders, who have been part of both the Yogi government as well as in the national BJP team in the past, are being talked about as those who could be inducted into Team Modi or the BJP’s national team.

“The focus could be on OBCs and Dalits but upper castes would also get a fair share as BJP would look to strike the right caste balance ahead of elections,” a BJP lawmaker said.

“A political appointment is always scrutinised from various angles and in UP, caste surely is a dominant one,” said Irshad Ilmi, a political commentator.

Apart from its existing OBC allies Apna Dal (S) and Nishad Party, the BJP is expected to get another OBC ally, the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) whose chief Om Prakash Rajbhar has been soft on the BJP since the SP-SBSP alliance came unstuck immediately after the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.

The BJP, it is learnt, wants a Nishad party-type arrangement with Rajbhar’s party. In 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Nishad party chief Sanjay Nishad’s son Pravin contested and won the LS polls on the BJP symbol while Sanjay became a cabinet minister in the Yogi government 2.0.

The arrangement with Rajbhar could be on similar lines, some BJP men feel.

According to this theory, Om Prakash Rajbhar could be made a cabinet minister while his son Arun may get to contest the Ghazipur Lok Sabha seat, where a bypoll is expected after the disqualification of sitting MP Afzal Ansari.

Still another leader said a “political bomb” could explode soon.

“Look towards RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary’s tweet and decide what you make of it,” this leader said.

The tweet in reference is a rather cryptic one. It goes on to state, “if you want to eat rice then you might as well eat rice pudding”. RLD’s state chief Ramashish Rai has in the past been critical of SP.

The RLD, which won eight seats in alliance association with SP, is also a party of Jats, another OBC group which has considerable political influence in west UP.