UP MLAs quit BJP for selfish motives, we’ll go door to door & showcase welfare: OBC Morcha head

While BJP central leadership draws up strategy to counter series of OBC MLAs’ resignations, OBC Morcha has been tasked with localised measures to tackle the issue.

The BJP is planning to go all out to showcase the successes of the NDA government at the Centre | ANI

New Delhi: Concerned over the exit of nearly a dozen leaders from the Other Backward Classes (OBC) ahead of the crucial Uttar Pradesh elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) OBC Morcha has stepped in for damage control.

While the BJP’s central leadership is busy drawing up a strategy to counter the series of resignations, the OBC Morcha has been tasked with organising door-to-door and street-corner meetings to inform the voters about all the welfare measures taken by the Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath governments. 

K. Laxman, the OBC Morcha chief, will also start his tour of the state later this week.

“We will go door to door and highlight that these MLAs who have quit the BJP recently have done it for selfish motives. If they were really concerned about the OBC population and they felt injustice was being done, why did they wait till the elections to resign? People understand that all this is for their selfish interest,” Laxman told ThePrint. 

He added that the Morcha will also carry out corner meetings in all assembly constituencies — keeping Covid guidelines in mind — and highlight measures such as Kisan Samman Nidhi, housing for the poor, distribution of one crore mobile phones and others.

A plan is also being chalked out to have OBC leaders of the party conduct small meetings in specific constituencies. The Morcha has also prepared a list of beneficiaries of central and state schemes and will make rounds of their homes.

“In every household, every person is bound to get some benefit or the other from our various welfare schemes. We have prepared pamphlets that have information about all the welfare measures that the central and state governments have introduced. A team has been tasked to go door to door and highlight them,” Laxman added.

The OBC factor

In their resignations, the MLAs and ministers had blamed the BJP for a “grossly neglectful attitude towards Dalits, backward classes, farmers, unemployed youth and small and medium businesspersons”.

This could hurt the BJP, which swept the 2017 assembly polls in large part due to the support it garnered from non-Yadav OBCs. 

With a number of OBC MLAs resigning, and O.P. Rajbhar of the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) aligning with the Samajwadi Party, things don’t look rosy for the BJP currently. So, the Morcha has decided to concentrate on highlighting the measures taken for the welfare of OBCs. 

“According to our estimate, the OBC population is around 40-50 per cent. Also, non-Yadav OBCs constitute at least 35 per cent of the state’s total population. The OBC vote is very crucial for us and we can’t allow disinformation to affect our campaign, which is why we have decided to reach out to the voters,” said a senior BJP leader who didn’t wish to be named. 

Laxman said his unit will highlight key reforms, including the Constitutional Amendment Bill that was passed in the Parliament last year, giving states and Union territories the power to identify and notify their own OBC lists.

Apart from this, to attract the youth, the Morcha will also highlight how the Modi government had decided to apply OBC reservation in the all-India quota (AIQ) for medical seats, both at the MBBS as well as post-graduation levels. OBC quota in the AIQ for medicine had been a longstanding demand of the community.

(Edited by Amit Upadhyaya)