‘Party gave tickets to 102 OBC candidates spread across 19 castes, and 83 Schedule Caste candidates spread across 14 castes’.
New Delhi: The BJP, which for long has been called a Brahmin-Baniya party, alluding to its perceived preference to give more space to representatives of these two castes, fielded only 60 Brahmins and 23 Banias in the 373 seats that it contested in Uttar Pradesh, which means that only 22.5% of BJP’s ticket went to these two castes.
In all, the BJP gave tickets to 105 Other Backward Class (OBC) candidates spread across 19 castes, 83 SC candidates spread across 14 Scheduled Castes (SC) and 188 candidates from the unreserved category from 11 caste, thereby stitching a caste community umbrella of 44 different identities.
The caste bloc that got the maximum ticket from the BJP was the Rajput, which saw 63 candidates followed by 60 Brahmin, 23 Bania and 16 Jat candidates. Apart from representation to these castes in the non-reserve category, Bhumihar (6), Khatri (6) , Kayastha (5 ), Jat (4)Tyagi (2), Sikh (1), Sindhi (1) and Khadagvanshi Kshatriyas (1) constituted the total of 188 tickets that were given by the BJP to the non-reserved candidates.
The saffron party gave tickets to 102 OBC candidates spread across 19 castes and 83 Schedule Caste (SC) candidates spread across 14 castes.
As per the 2011 census, out of the state’s total population, 20 percent belong to the SC community. As per independent data, the number of OBCs in Uttar Pradesh is about 42% of the total population.
In comparison, the Samajwadi Party (SP), which was the primary rival of the BJP, gave the maximum number of ticket to Muslims (58), Yadav (51), Brahmin (33), Rajput (20), Bania (13), Sikh (4), Jat (4), Bhumihar (3), Kayastha (2), Khatri (1), in the 10 non-reserve category totalling 189 candidates out of the 346 seats it contested.
In the OBC bloc, it gave tickets to 83 candidates from 13 communities. A total of 74 candidates from the SC community spread across 10 communities were fielded by the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP.
“We claim what we claim on the basis of what we can prove. We claimed that we are the most inclusive party and the caste breakup of our candidates proves that. The OBC and the SC bloc got about 50% of the party’s tickets. SP’s corresponding number is 45%. And it is because of this social engineering, which is nothing but to give representation to the maximum caste and community that the BJP is where it is right now. Media and our opponents call us someone who represents only the forward community, but the actual numbers narrate the true story,” a party leader who played an instrumental role in the party’s campaign in Uttar Pradesh said.