‘This time, with the formidable caste equation against it, the BJP is not too confident about retaining the Sasaram seat’.
NEW DELHI: The Kushwahas, a caste segment in Bihar that claims to impact electoral results in 15 Lok Sabha seats and around 70 Assembly seats, are being aggressively wooed by the BJP, which theoretically is at a disadvantage following the coming together of seven political parties to form the grand alliance coalition.
On Sunday, Home Minister Amit Shah, during his visit to Bihar, his fourth in the last six months, was supposed to address a strong crowd of at least 1 lakh people at the Railway ground, Sasaram, in South-West Bihar. However, the said event was cancelled at the last moment on Saturday after the state administration imposed Section 144 in wake of the communal tension that has affected the town on Thursday and Friday in the wake of the Ram Navmi celebrations.
Shah was the chief guest in the “Samarat Ashok Jayanati Samaroh”, an annual event that has been traditionally celebrated by the Bihar BJP at Patna on the occasion of the birth of King Ashoka, who was born in 304 BC, approximately 2250 years ago. Many historians claim that Kushwahas of Bihar are the descendants of Ashoka. Ashoka, who was the grandson of Maurya dynasty founder Chandragupta Maurya, was born in a family of shepherds. The capital of the Maurya dynasty was Patliputra, which is today’s Patna. However, this time the local BJP unit decided to move the celebrations to Sasaram.
The reason behind BJP moving this event to Sasaram from Patna, too, has an interesting angle to it.
In November last year, a rock edict at a hill in Sasaram that is called as “Shaheed Chandan” was freed of encroachment by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). The said edict contains eight lines in archaic Brahmi characters. The said hill apart from this edict, also has a temple and a Muslim tomb and a small mosque.
According to local BJP leaders, it was only due to their efforts that the encroachment was removed of squatters who had included the rock edict as a part of the premises of the mosque. The ASI had later tweeted pictures of followers of Islam faith handing over the key to a door that guarded the rock edict to the ASI. The appropriation of King Ashoka as a caste leader had started in Bihar during the 2015 assembly elections, when the BJP had launched a state-wide campaign to popularize him as a Kushwaha. This campaign was aimed at weakening the hold of JDU (then estranged from the BJP) over Kushwaha voters, who constitute 8-10% of the total population of the state and are considered as the second largest OBC block after the Yadav community in the state.
According to political observers, Kushwahas or Koeri as they are also called, are mostly spread in what was earlier called as “Shahabad district” till 1972. Post 1972, it was split into two districts- Bhojpur and Rohtas. In 1991, another district was carved out, that of Kaimur and in 1992, Buxar was added to this. Sasaram is a part of this grouping. Now Aurangabad and Arrah are also considered a part of it.
The former Lok Sabha speaker, Meira Kumar, who is married to a Kushwaha family, was a two time MP from Sasaram while winning the 2004 and the 2009 elections. Since then the seat has been with the BJP. However, this time, with the formidable caste equation against it, the BJP is not too confident about retaining this seat. According to BJP leader Ratnesh Kuswaha, who is the convenor of this event and has been based in Sasaram for more than two weeks to prepare for this event, all senior Bihar BJP leaders, Union ministers, organizational functionaries, including the newly appointed co-incharge Sunil Ojha and MPs from the region, were expected to take part in this event. Union ministers, including Ashwini Choubey, were camping in the region to take care of the logistics.
“BJP is the only party that has taken concrete steps to protect and promote the legacy of King Ashoka. Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the national emblem cast on the roof of the new Parliament building in New Delhi. The emblem is an adaptation of the Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath. In 2015, our government issued a postage stamp to commemorate Ashoka. And it was due to our party’s workers effort at Sasaram that we could save the ancient rock edict here which was encroached for so long. Our motto has been to work for the larger interest and emotion of the people, if that leads to people voting for us, then there is no harm in it,” he told The Sunday Guardian. The Lion Capital of Ashoka is the head or the upper portion of a pillar erected by the Ashoka in ancient Sarnath (near the present Varanasi) which has four life-sized lions set back to back.
The recent appointment of Samrat Choudhary, who too is from the Kushwaha community, as the new Bihar BJP president is being seen as the BJP’s effort to bring the Kushwaha voters into its fold, a vote bank which till now has been with JDU and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The decision of the Ministry of Home Affairs to accord a Y+ security to former JDU leader, Upendra Kushwaha, who recently quit the party and floated his own, is also being seen as the BJP’s move to use his hold over Kushwaha voters.
Earlier, Kumar, on Thursday, “warned” the people of Bihar of BJP trying to appropriate the legacy of Ashoka. Without naming the BJP and Shah, Kumar said: “In a few days, someone from Delhi will come and mislead people in the name of Samrat Ashoka.” According to Kushwaha, the violence that led to the cancellation of the event was a part of a larger plan to stop the BJP from reaching out to the Kushwaha voters. “We approached the district administration on Saturday and requested them to let us do the event, but they refused to budge. The violence was played out so that the state administration could get an excuse from Amit Shah from interacting with the people of Sasaram and followers of Ashoka,” Kushwaha said. Now the said event is unlikely to happen this year.