Party plans to attract Extremely Backward Class and Schedule Caste.
NEW DELHI: Recovering swiftly from the political manoeuver on the hands of Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav that it faced in Bihar, the BJP plans to counter the formidable caste arithmetic that has come into being following the JDU-RJD alliance by taking actions to attract Extremely Backward Class (EBC) and Schedule Caste (SC) and by announcing a Chief Ministerial candidate for the 2025 Assembly polls.
Till now, EBC vote bank—that comprises about 110 caste—is counted as “Nitish voters” in the state and in every election, this vote bank has more or less stayed with Nitish Kumar and JDU and helped him in giving him the numbers to become the CM irrespective of which ever alliance is in power in the state. The EBC forms about ¼ of the state’s total population, with SC comprising almost 16%. At least 17% voters are Muslims, with around 14% being Yadav voters. The last two voting blocs are described as pro-RJD.
To break this vote bank of Nitish Kumar, Home Minister Amit Shah who was recently in Bihar has told party leaders and workers to focus on these two blocs and tell them about the policies that have been brought by the central government to benefit them. According to a state leader, Shah had told the party leaders that the caste focused offense that Nitish Kumar and RJD will mount in the state elections can only be countered by telling the voters of the work done by the Narendra Modi government which Shah said has benefited everyone irrespective of any caste or religious affiliations.
Simultaneously, the party is looking to appoint its next state president from either the EBC or the SC community in place of the incumbent Sanjay Jaiswal, an Other Backward Class (OBC), and whose tenure ended last month. According to a senior BJP functionaries, if the central leadership decides to continue with its OBC push, MLA from Digha, Sanjiv Chaurasia and Rajya Sabha MP and state stalwart, Sushil Modi are the two strongest candidates to replace Jaiswal, who is seen as someone who belongs to the anti “Sushil Modi” camp. Similarly, the decision to announce that the BJP will be projecting a CM face in 2025 polls, has been taken to bring disruption within the JDU-RJD alliance and force Nitish Kumar to clarify whether he will be the CM face in the next election or the alliance will announce RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, who is seen by his supporters as ‘CM in waiting” as the alliance CM’s face for the 2025 poll.
With the CBI filing a chargesheet earlier this week in the alleged “job for land” scam naming members of Tejashwi’s family as accused, the BJP leaders believe that Kumar who is extremely conscious of his “clean image” will be feeling pressure and ‘uncomforted’ which the BJP intends to use in the coming days. This is for the first time since the last few years that the BJP has said that it will announce a CM face in the assembly elections. In 2015, the party had officially announced Kiran Bedi as its CM face for February 2015 Delhi elections. The party could win only 3 of the 70 seats with Bedi herself losing the election.