The BJP’s choice of three chief ministers from different social sections in the heartland states gives an insight into the party’s big plan for the Lok Sabha battle that critically hinges on mastering the caste matrix. By selecting Mohan Yadav, an OBC, to be the new CM in Madhya Pradesh and picking tribal leader, Vishnu Deo Sai, to be the CM in Chhattisgarh and Brahmin face Bhajan Lal Sharma as Rajasthan CM, the BJP has shown its reliance on caste/class arithmetic and the party thinktank’s sensitivity towards the regional spread of different communities and castes.
While the party seems clear about treating key Hindi heartland states – including UP, MP, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Bihar – as one bloc of electors, it is also mindful of the influence that regional icons – in this case the three new CMs belonging to different social sections – may have across the belt on being projected as faces of their respective community.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to pick Bhajan Lal Sharma, a state BJP general secretary, as the new Chief Minister not only brings the party closer to Brahmin voters in Rajasthan and other Hindi-belt states but also energises the cadre ahead of the Lok Sabha election as it again sets an example that a common worker of the party can also rise to the top post.
Interestingly, the new chief ministers in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were also both general secretaries of their state BJP units before being elevated to the CM’s post. The choice of Sharma as CM Rajasthan is visibly a master stroke to strengthen BJP’s hold over the caste matrix, without diluting the national-level agenda of “Modi ki guarantee”, development, patriotism and Hindutva for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
In addition to this, the BJP is parallelly building a narrative for a new caste-less polity in which citizens are given identities derived from their economic status, gender, profession and age. Modi has already started nudging the cast discourse into a new space where he has said that for him the only relevant four castes in the country are – the poor, women, farmers and the youth.
The selection of Sharma, 56, as CM in Rajasthan may help the BJP reach out to Brahmin voters who form 8% of the total voters in the desert state. At the national level, Brahmin voters account for 5% of the total electorate. The new Madhya Pradesh CM, Mohan Yadav, is the fourth OBC leader that the BJP has selected to the top post in the state, including Uma Bharati, Babu Lal Gaur and Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
Over 48% of 5.2 crore voters in Madhya Pradesh are OBCs. In UP, OBC voters account for 54% of population and in 63% in Bihar. In the just-concluded Rajasthan Assembly election, the BJP fielded 19 Brahmin candidates out of whom 10 have been elected in the new House.
In all, the BJP secured 115 seats out of 199, leading to the ousting of the incumbent Ashok Gehlot government, while the Congress won 69 seats. The BJP’s decision to pick a Brahmin for Rajasthan’s CM post is also being described as a correction of a historical mistake in the desert state where the last Brahmin CM, Hari Dev Joshi of the Congress, served in 1990.
Even the state BJP chief C.P. Joshi belongs to the Brahmin community. A Brahmin pick as the CM in Rajasthan is likely to help the BJP attract Brahmin voters in Hindi heartland and neighbouring states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana. UP and Uttarakhand already have Rajput CMs in Yogi Adityanath and Pushkar Singh Dhami.
The only two Brahmin CMs in the country are in eastern states – Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal and Himanta Biswa Sarma in Assam – and both are far from being electorally effective in appealing to the Brahmin/Rajput electorate in the Hindi belt. Senior journalist Vinod Agnihotri said the faith reposed by the BJP in a Brahmin CM in Rajasthan will help it keep intact its Brahmin vote bank which has always been loyal to it in the other Hindi belt states.
Interestingly, the BJP has picked a Brahmin as a deputy CM in both Chhattisgarh and MP. Political analyst Ritwick Srivastav said BJP’s CM and Deputy CM picks have been made keeping an eye on maintaining caste balance across BJP-ruled north Indian states. “Now BJP has a Thakur/ Rajput CM (UP), Brahmin CM (Rajasthan), OBC – Yadav CM (MP), ST CM (Chhattisgarh) – all these castes are focus castes for BJP for Lok Sabha election and would help BJP retain its tally in the upcoming General Elections.”
The new MP CM is likely to be the Yadav face of BJP and influence this community’s voters in the Lok Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Bihar. Political analyst Varun Purohit called Yadav’s selection as the new Madhya Pradesh CM as a “political surgical strike” ahead of the Lok Sabha contest. “It’s a victory for Mandal politics, with special focus on OBCs and tribals,” said political analyst Ashutosh.
The tribal CM from Chhattisgarh is going to help BJP reach out to tribal voters in neighbouring states like Jharkhand, Odisha, MP, Rajasthan and Telangana. About 30.6% of the population in Chhattisgarh belongs to the tribal community. In Madhya Pradesh, STs account for 21.1% of the population.
In Rajasthan, 13.49% of the total population belongs to the scheduled tribes. In Odisha, STs account for 23% of the population and in Jharkhand 26% of population is from the ST community.