Rahul’s ‘caste share’ call fuels unrest in Bihar Cong

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s pitch for “Jitni Abadi, Utna Haq (greater the population, greater the rights)” has led to a palpable discomfiture within the party leadership in Bihar, where most of its chief ministers in its heyday and top office bearers at present were and are upper castes, which are otherwise numerically insignificant as per the caste survey findings released earlier this month.

In fact, none of the senior Congress leaders in Bihar openly came out to support the caste survey findings released on October 2, according to which extremely backward classes (EBCs) and backward classes (BCs) together constitute more than 63% of Bihar’s population.

Former Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) president Anil Sharma and senior leader Kishore Kumar Jha openly dubbed the findings flawed.

In a string of tweets after the findings were released, Sharma had even dared chief minister Nitish Kumar to swear in three more deputy CMs from the EBCs, scheduled castes and the minority community, which constitute about 36.01%,19.65% and 17.70% of Bihar’s population, respectively.

Former Congress legislature party (CLP) leader Ajeet Sharma was more guarded in response, saying Rahul Gandhi’s call was aimed at countering the politics of BJP, which claims to be pursing EBC politics. “We don’t follow caste politics. Instead, our party thrived on holistic politics and taking care of all castes. So far as elevating the reservation ceiling is concerned, it should be decided after correcting the enumeration figures,” Sharma said.

A former MLA and party spokesman, who was not willing to be named, said Congress always stood for welfare of all communities, but with upper caste leaders mostly at the helm. “Currently, both BPCC chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh and CLP leader Shakeel Ahmad Khan hail from upper castes. Their immediate predecessors, Madan Mohan Jha and Ajeet Sharma, too were upper castes. Ashok Chaudhary and Ashok Kumar were from the scheduled caste community as the BPCC chief and CLP leader, but the upper castes dominated the organisation mostly,” said the former spokesman.

“Even in case of the chief ministers, Congress preferred upper caste faces. The first CM, Srikrishna Sinha, was a Bhumihar. His successors, Deep Narayan Singh, Binodanand Jha, KB Sahay and Kedar Pandey were all from upper castes. Jagannath Mishra, a Brahmin, was the last Congress chief minister in Bihar before Lalu Prasad assumed the office. Before him, Satyendra Narayan Sinha, Bhagwat Jha Azad, Bindeshwari Dubey and Chandra Shekhar Singh also hailed from the upper caste community,” said another Congress MLA, adding that some leaders from other castes, like Bhola Paswan Shastri and Abdul Gafoor, also served as Congress chief ministers.

Another senior party leader, pleading anonymity, said the party needed drastic reshuffle of the organisation in Bihar to suit Rahul Gandhi’s new political line as 24 out of its 40 district unit presidents in Bihar come from upper castes. “In fact, all four Congress MLCs in Bihar are upper caste faces,” the leader said.

According to AICC member Kishore Kumar Jha, Congress had given about 50% of party tickets in the 70 constituencies it fought in the 2020 assembly polls to candidates from upper castes. “There is obvious indifference among party leaders in Bihar towards Rahul Gandhi’s call for pursing the Mandal politics in Bihar. We have towering leaders in the party from all communities,” said Jha.

Incidentally, it was the Mandal wave (the aftermath of the implementation of the Mandal commission report that recommended 27% quota for OBCs) that dislodged the Congress from power in Bihar more than three decades ago.

Nawal Kishore Chaudhary, political analyst and former head of economics department of the Patna University, said the Congress’s strategic shift to mobilise backward classes, apart from the minority community, is set to pay rich dividends for the party nationally, though it might face some resistance from its own leaders and allies in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. “Rahul Gandhi’s call may lead to minor churning of upper caste votes, but ultimately the party is set to gain nationally from the new elector base. This is the reason why BJP and RSS leaders are at their wits’ end to counter the Congress’s politics,” Chaudhary said.

He said Congress’s current allies, RJD and Janata Dal (United), may not like its shift though. “RJD and JD(U) considered Congress as the party of upper castes and hence they banked on it for their support and allotted it seats with upper caste dominance. However, they will now have to adjust the Congress, which is addressing the national constituency by raising the pitch for justice’ to the backward castes,” Chaudhary said.