New Delhi: There seems to be growing anxiety within the BJP over the Nitish Kumar government’s caste-based survey in Bihar, and its potential impact on the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
This was evident Monday when Solicitor General Tushar Mehta made a sudden appearance before the Supreme Court bench hearing petitions against the Bihar caste survey, and sought permission to file an affidavit on behalf of the Modi government.
The survey will have “ramifications”, Mehta said, adding that the Centre’s affidavit will be on the question of the survey’s legal validity.
While Justice Sanjeev Khanna allowed the Centre to file its affidavit, the court said “it won’t stay the survey”, as sought by NGO Youth for Equality, one of the petitioners.
The JD(U) was quick to hit out at the BJP for the intervention in the Supreme Court, saying the Modi government has made it clear that it wants to stop the caste survey.
BJP leaders told ThePrint that the party supports the survey in Bihar but not at the national level, citing possible “administrative and social challenges”.
However, on the condition of anonymity, some BJP leaders said the survey may open a Pandora’s box — unleash a second phase of “Mandal politics” in north India — and also admitted to fears that it may prove an advantage to Nitish and other parties in the Opposition’s INDIA coalition, besides leading to demands for the exercise to be held at the national scale.
Speaking about the Modi government’s SC affidavit, a senior BJP functionary told ThePrint that “it could reflect the challenges” raised against the survey in legal petitions.
“First is violation of fundamental Right of Privacy. Bihar is not like metropolitan Delhi or Mumbai. In Bihar’s caste-driven society, branding, ostracising of individuals can foil social harmony,” the functionary said.
“Second, it has been challenged on competence, as only the Union government can conduct a census, according to the Constitution,” the leader added.
Also Read: Boost for Nitish as Patna HC dismisses all PILs challenging Bihar caste survey
Why BJP is worried
While the BJP sees Bihar as a challenge in 2024, on account of Nitish’s withdrawal from the NDA and subsequent alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the party’s dilemma with respect to the caste survey is not restricted to the state alone.
The BJP has established its hold over caste-based politics by seeking to assimilate non-dominant OBC castes under the Hindutva umbrella.
It fears the survey’s national ramifications could upset the Hindutva politics that it credits for its victory in 2014 and 2019.
There are also fears that any ensuing struggle for more reservation may upset the upper castes, the party’s key votebank.
To add to it, the BJP is said to be apprehensive that the survey may strengthen “Mandal parties” like the RJD, Janata Dal (United) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) in Bihar, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh, the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in Haryana, besides regional parties from Maharashtra and Karnataka. The impact could even help the Congress in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, where it has appointed OBC chief ministers (Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel), they fear.
Said a senior BJP leader: “Through the ‘kamandal politics’ of the Rath yatra, we countered the Mandal politics started by V.P. Singh in 1990. We have got success in assimilating non-dominant OBC castes into the Hindutva fold.”
The RSS, the leader added, “has worked tirelessly for the inclusion of backward castes into the Hindutva identity”.
“The caste census will break all efforts made in the last two decades. That is why we are not in favour of breaking the harmonious relations of different castes.”
Another senior party leader said that “through Hindutva politics, the BJP has broken the influence of dominant OBC castes — like Yadavs, Kurmis and Jats — among smaller OBC groups”.
“It was the reason behind the counter-polarisation of smaller OBC groups in favour of the BJP in UP and Bihar. We got success in 2014 and 2019 by breaking the monopoly of dominant castes in UP, and cornering the Akhilesh Yadav-Mayawati coalition in 2019, and the Tejashwi Yadav-led coalition in Bihar,” the leader added.
“After the publication of the caste survey data, the Mandal parties can demand a hike in reservation… this can upset upper castes and counter-mobilisation can happen. Our developmental and welfare agenda can be hijacked by these parties. These reservation demands can upset politics before 2024.”
BJP national general secretary Radha Mohan Agarwal said “dynastic parties like the RJD and the SP have nothing left to seek votes”.
“They only resort to protecting their turf by asking for a caste census. Why did Mulayam Singh Yadav or even Akhilesh not carry out a caste census in their tenures as CM,” he said. “The BJP believes in uniting castes, not dividing them.”
BJP’s OBC inroads
According to a post-2019 survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), the BJP has made huge inroads into the OBC vote in the past decade.
In the 2009 Lok Sabha election, 22 percent of the OBCs are believed to have voted for the BJP and 42 percent for regional parties. In 2019, this number was 44 percent and 27 percent, respectively, the survey found.
The decline of OBC votes at the Lok Sabha level showed in the seats won by regional parties — which dropped from 69 in 2009 to 34 in 2019.
This shift has been attributed by the BJP to its outreach to non-Yadav non-Kurmi OBCs “who were marginalised under Lalu in Bihar, and under Mulayam and Akhilesh in UP”, through various welfare programmes like Mudra and Vishwakarma, which seek to encourage skill development and entrepreneurship.
However, the survey said, these trends don’t seem to reflect at the assembly level — which shows that the parties remain a challenge for the BJP.
During the 2019 Lok Sabha election, 11 percent of OBCs voted for the RJD, but the number went up to 29 percent in the 2020 assembly election.
In UP, 14 percent of the OBCs are believed to have voted for the SP in 2019, but the figure was 29 percent in the 2017 UP assembly polls, the survey said.
‘Modi govt wants to stop survey’
In 2019, the NDA won 39 seats in Bihar — 17 for the BJP, 16 for the JD(U) and 6 for the LJP.
The BJP got support from upper castes, Dalits and smaller OBC groups and marginally from the Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs), together coming to an estimated 30 percent of the total voteshare. Meanwhile, Nitish — with his ‘Luv-Kush’ push for Kurmi-Kushwaha unity, along with EBCs — and the RJD’s Muslim-Yadav voters together comprise a bloc that accounts for an estimated 43 percent of Bihar’s voters.
Attacking the Modi government’s affidavit in the SC, JD(U) president Rajiv Ranjan Singh or Lallan Singh told reporters that “now it’s clear that the Modi government wants to stop the caste survey in Bihar”.
“At the time of seeking votes, Modi says he comes from backward castes, but when Nitish Kumar is trying to estimate the backward castes’ economic status, they are trying to stop the survey,” he added.
“Why are they scared of data? They want to deny the most backward classes the opportunity of empowerment through the caste survey in Bihar.”
Bihar BJP chief Samrat Choudhary dismissed Lallan Singh’s allegations, saying the party “has supported the caste survey in Bihar”. “We were part of the Nitish government, which supported the demand for a caste census. Lallan Singh has a habit of making allegations against the BJP. It’s the Supreme Court that will decide the outcome of the hearing, not Lallan Singh.”
He added that “the solicitor general’s intervention is only a legal procedure required in court”.
“We are supporting the survey,” he said.
BJP OBC morcha president L. Laxman said the “BJP has supported the survey in Bihar, but doing so at the national level is not possible due to administrative challenges and social challenges”.
A Bihar BJP functionary said the party doesn’t have an option but to support the survey in the state.
“Nitish has played his card. Now, if we oppose it, we will lose the OBCs. We only have the option to support it, but don’t know how it will play out. The only safe option is the status quo.”
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
Also Read: ‘Not a futile search for a pot of gold’ — Patna High Court order upholding Bihar caste census