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Talk Point: Congress will find it tougher to handle a ‘caste mela’ in Gujarat

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Ahead of the crucial Gujarat elections, the Congress party has been actively seeking out powerful leaders of different caste communities. A prominent OBC strongman Alpesh Thakor of the BJP has defected to the Congress party, even as talks with the Patidar leader Hardik Patel are underway. Its complex caste formulations have given some hope to the beleaguered Congress party in Gujarat, which has been under the BJP rule for almost two decades.

Can Congress use caste to challenge BJP’s ‘Hindutva-Vikas’ in Gujarat elections?

The caste card is one of the advantages the Congress possesses, but not exclusively. The BJP will use the caste card with as much vigour as it will use the Modi card.

The Congress’s problem is that Jignesh Mevani and Alpesh Thakore are not adding anything new to its 38.9 per cent vote share from 2012. Hardik Patel, on the other hand, is all about the “disgruntled BJP crowd”, but again, his forte is unabashed Patelism, and that’s both his strength and his weakness.

With new leaders in its camp, the Congress will have to handle a heterogeneous caste mela with panache. But it’ll be a tough ask, because unlike the BJP, where Amit Shah is a one-window power station, one isn’t sure who holds the baton in the Congress.

Much before Modi became Hindutva’s poster boy, he was the wizard of Gujarat’s caste chemistry. It was Modi and some Gujarat-based RSS stalwarts who used Patidar votes to bring down the Congress’s solidified Kshatriya-Harijan-Adivasi-Muslim support base in the early 1990s.


Here are other sharp perspectives in the same Talk Point by:
Anshuman Kumar, Associate Editor, ThePrint
Pravin Mishra, Associate professor, MICA School of Ideas
Harsh Sanghavi, BJP MLA, Gujarat
Ruhi Tewari, Associate Editor, ThePrint


The case of Rajya Sabha MP Shambhuprasad Tundiya is an example of Modi-Shah’s caste concoction. It’s difficult to figure out if he is an MP due to his Hindu credentials — he heads the Sant Savgun Samadhisthan religious seat in Zanzarka — or because he represents the Vankars, a sub-caste of Dalits. By sending him to the Rajya Sabha, Shah gave the BJP access to his five lakh staunch Dalit followers.

According to a pre-independence caste-based census, Gujarat had roughly 7 per cent Dalits, 9 per cent Muslims, 14 per cent tribals, 14 per cent Patidars, 5 per cent upper caste Rajputs, and 5 per cent upper caste Brahmin-Baniyas. Other Backward Classes were not less than 45 per cent, including the biggest single block — Kolis, with 20 per cent.

For long, Modi has kept the loud and dominant Patels under control, while cajoling OBCs, particularly Kolis. Let’s wait and see how castes are represented in the Congress and the BJP’s candidate lists this time.

Sheela Bhatt is a national affairs editor at NewsX

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