Upper castes left out in the cold in UP

With all major political players in Uttar Pradesh preparing to play the backward caste card for the 2017 Assembly elections, it is the upper caste voters who have been left out in the cold.

The upper castes who had been playing a key role in state as well as party politics, are, for the first time, feeling unwanted.

The BJP, which had been the sole custodian of upper caste votes in UP after the Congress got relegated to the wings during the Ayodhya movement in the 90s, has also firmly shifted focus to OBCs.

“The BJP was known as an upper caste-dominated party till now but with the OBC leadership dominating the top echelons of the party; it is obvious that upper castes find little room for themselves now. The BJP leadership is preparing to appoint an OBC leader to lead the party in the next Assembly elections which means that happy days are over for upper castes in the BJP,” said a veteran upper caste leader in the party.

The Samajwadi Party, an OBC-based party which has made efforts to become broad based in the past few years, is also reverting to its OBC plank with a vengeance. SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav at a party meeting on Tuesday, not only reiterated his commitment to the OBC cause but also vowed to protect the interests of most backward castes too.

Thakurs, who were being wooed by the Samajwadis till recently, have now been sidelined. Two Thakur ministers Mahendra Aridaman Singh and Yogesh Pratap Singh were dismissed last month and Raghuraj Pratap Singh’s portfolio has been downsized, sending a clear message to the Thakur community.

The Bahujan Samaj Party, too, has ended its “political honeymoon” with upper castes, mainly brahmins. The party that rode to power with a clear majority in 2007 on its dalit-brahmin social engineering slogan, has returned to being a dalit party after the Lok Sabha elections. The BSP faced a total rout in the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 because dalits went in large numbers to the BJP. Dalits were apparently upset over the importance being given to brahmins in the party.

Ms Mayawati, therefore, is back to giving importance to dalits and the brahmins in the party have been neatly sidelined.

The Congress, on its part, remains still undecided about its vote bank preferences. A senior UP Congress leader said, “We have been trying to impress upon the party high command that we need to win back upper castes and if can do this, Muslims will also come in because they are disillusioned with the SP. The party leadership has yet to take a call on this”.