The battle for Maharashtra, which seemed to depend on the Maratha vote, is being turned by the BJP into a battle for OBC support. Starting with an advantage in this regard, compared to the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, the BJP is building on it by fully voicing the Congress party’s narrative.
Kicking off his Maharashtra campaign on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the slogan “Ek hain, toh safe hain (We are all safe)” – a nod to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s “Batenge to tegege (We will be divided and we will be reduced)” slogan. , among other things that left the NCP coalition uneasy.
While the rivals blame the slogans of communal unity, the core of both at one level is that the Congress’s political style is “divisive”, and that its call for a caste-based census pits one party against the other. In one of his meetings on Friday, Modi said: “The only agenda of the Congress is to make one party fight another.” They do not want SCs, STs and OBCs to develop and get due recognition.”
In another meeting, the Prime Minister said that the Congress is angry with the OBCs because their association behind Mandal politics has caused their downfall. “Therefore, the Congress wants to weaken the OBCs and break their unity,” he said.
For the BJP, retaining the OBC vote is important, as the demand for Maratha share has put the two parties at opposite ends, the Marathas preferring the MVA. In terms of population, the OBCs – comprising about 350 subgroups, according to the Maharashtra State Backward Classes Commission – are the largest segment, accounting for 38%, followed by the Marathas at 33%.
Acknowledging the criticism of the OBC vote, a senior BJP leader says the party has identified them as part of 175 of the 288 seats. , which includes 116 seats.
The OBC battle is expected to be fiercest in Vidarbha, where Maratha reservation is not an issue. Here, OBCs are believed to be gunning for more than half (36) of the 62 seats.
Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi president Prakash Ambedkar, who contested from Akola in Western Vidarbha, acknowledges the “unprecedented integration of OBCs for the first time” as a result of the Maratha reservation agitation. Ambedkar also warns of “great unrest” among the OBCs due to the Maratha quota agitation.
OBC Manch president Prakash Shendge agrees. “It is a battle for political persistence, and this includes OBCs,” he said, adding that OBCs may vote for OBC candidates who cross political and ideological boundaries.
The senior BJP leader quoted above says that the party’s OBC strategy involves targeting less of the “bad sections, smaller sections” – which has paid off in successive polls, including the latest in Haryana. Such maneuvers are mainly carried out in the border areas of Vidarbha, North Maharashtra, Marathwada.
Besides, just before the Maharashtra elections were announced, seven new groups were included in the central OBC list by the Modi government, and the state government raised the glass ceiling for OBC benefits. Again, this was a leaf in the Haryana BJP’s book.
Among the OBC groups that the BJP is targeting are Teli, Banjara, Pawar, Bhoyar, Komti, Sonar, Gond and a dozen others.
Admitting that the BJP has failed to tap into the OBC’s anger over the Maratha issue in this year’s Lok Sabha elections, the BJP leader says: “The OBCs were angry with the BJP as they felt that the Eknath Shinde-led government was actually doing too much. appease ( Maratha quota activist) Manoj Jarange-Patil and the Marathas. In the end, we lost the support of both the Marathas and the OBCs.”
The party won only nine seats in the Lok Sabha elections, out of the 28 it contested, down from 12 in 2019.
The BJP’s OBC strategy is, in fact, not new, as the party started the ‘MADHAV formula’ in the early 1980s – an acronym representing the prominent OBC groups Mali, Dhangar and Vanjari – which helped to carve out a distinct support base for the Marathas and shed the image of being a “Brahmin party , Baniya”.
Over the years, the BJP expanded beyond this formula and gained some ground among the Marathas. However, the public remains loyal to the Congress and the NCP, especially in the sugar belt of Western Maharashtra, which has 70 seats.
While Sharad Pawar remains the colossus there, the Congress has also taken drastic steps to regain its statistical power in the constituency after its success in the Lok Sabha elections. It is seen as a bank in Vidarbha for the Kunbhi community, which comprises 60 percent of the OBC population, apart from its common background of Dalits and Muslims.
In the 2014 Assembly Elections, the BJP had won 44 out of 62 seats in Vidarbha. But in 2019, this dropped to 29. In the recent Lok Sabha elections, the Congress was ahead of five to two of the BJP, while the rest of the seats were won by the Shiv Sena, NCP (SP) and Independents.
Congress chief Nana Patole, who hails from Eastern Vidarbha, says: “This region used to be a Congress stronghold and we are confident of retaining it.”
In the North and West parts of Maharashtra, the Congress – like the BJP – is looking to woo the Dhangar OBC group, which is 9 percent of the population. The Congress and the NCP (SP) reminded the Dhangars of the unfulfilled promise of the BJP to grant them national status. At present the Dhangars get 3.5% share under the category of Nomadic Tribes (C).
What will hurt Mahayuti here is the BJP’s failure to contain the Rashtriya Samay Party, led by Mahadev Jankar.