OBCs get lion’s share in BJP’s caste rainbow against SP’s PDA

Looking to regain lost ground after its disappointing showing in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has put together a broadbased caste configuration for the Uttar Pradesh assembly bypolls to challenge the Samajwadi Party’s (Pichda, Dalit and Alpsankhyak) formula.
In an effort to consolidate its Other Backward Classes (OBC) vote base that drifted to the INDIA bloc in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the BJP has fielded four OBC candidates. The BJP, which is contesting eight of the nine seats, has also named two Brahmins and a Dalit and a Kshatriya candidate each.
Four of the nine assembly seats going to bypolls were won by the SP, three by the BJP and one each by the Nishad party and the RLD in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
All parties have fielded a Dalit candidate for the Khair assembly seat in Aligarh, a reserved seat for Scheduled Caste candidates. The BJP has fielded Surendra Diler there.
Sanjeev Sharma, a Brahmin candidate, will contest the predominantly urban assembly constituency of Ghaziabad.
Suresh Awasthi, another Brahmin, will contest from Sisamau in Kanpur Nagar district.
The BJP’s last minute decision to field Awasthi stems from the fact that Kanpur is a Brahmin-dominated city in Uttar Pradesh.
Ramvir Singh Thakur, a Kshatriya candidate, will contest from Kundarki in Moradabad as the BJP candidate.
The BJP has left the Meerapur seat in Muzaffarnagar for its ally, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).
Former MLA Mithlesh Pal, an OBC leader, will be RLD candidate from Meerapur. She had won the 2009 bypoll for Morna assembly seat as the RLD candidate. Pal will face Samajwadi Party’s Sumbul Rana.
It will be BJP’s Anujesh Yadav against SP’s Tej Pratap Yadav in Karhal. Tej Pratap Yadav is SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s cousin. Amid reports that Anujesh Yadav is brother-in -law of Dharmendra Yadav, the SP MP from Azamgarh, Dharmendra has denied the claim.
In Phulpur, a Kurmi candidate Deepak Patel will be the BJP’s face.
The BJP has denied a seat to its alliance partner the Nishad Party in this bypoll. However, it has made sure that the Nishad community gets representation, fielding Dharmraj Nishad from Katehri.
Another OBC leader Suchismita Maurya will be in the fray on the BJP ticket from Majhawan in Mirzapur.
The BJP’s outreach to the OBC community is not without reason.
In four successive poll victories in Uttar Pradesh—2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha and 2017, 2022 assembly polls- the BJP managed the most diverse representation minus Muslims by keeping its caste umbrella intact– broadly non-Jatav Dalits, non-Yadav OBCs and upper castes .
In the 2024 Lok Sabha poll, the SP’s PDA formulation succeeded in bringing a large chunk of OBC and Dalits into its fold, giving a formidable blow to the BJP.
The BJP’s tally in Uttar Pradesh came down to 33 in the last Lok Sabha election from 62 in 2019.
The most resounding defeat was in the Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency, the nerve centre of saffron politics revolving around the temple town of Ayodhya.