Faced with a lack of committed support from any one numerically strong community in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress, party sources confirmed, is planning to give as many as 100 of the 403 seats to the powerful Brahmin community: this is in addition to projecting former three-time Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit as its chief ministerial candidate.
The Congress that has not been in power for the last 27 years in the State is, after all, taking on a field that includes competitors who can individually count on one or other community. The Samajwadi Party can depend on the Yadavs who constitute around 9 % of the population, while the Bahujan Samaj Party has a committed vote base of close to 20 per cent: a majority of the Dalits here belong to the Jatav community, to which BSP supremo Mayawati belongs. And since 2014 the BJP has been successfully wooing non-Yadav OBCs; add to this, the Banias who have been traditional voters of the party.
The Congress, on the other hand, had become dependent on the vote pulling power of individual candidates: it has a paltry 28 MLAs in the U.P. Assembly.
The Congress’s calculation in fielding around 100 Brahmins, therefore, party sources said, is to capitalise on the Brahmins’ “natural identification” with it and their desire to “rule again”.
N.D. Tiwari, the last Brahmin chief minister, lost power in 1989, and his caste fellows, Congress sources said, know that none of them can aspire to be chief minister in a dispensation headed by the SP or BSP; as for the BJP, the party to which the community shifted its allegiance from the Congress in the wake of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, it is focussing these days on OBCs.
Capacity to influence
Brahmins in UP account for around 11 per cent: their position at the top of the caste hierarchy has meant that their capacity to influence others has always been greater than their numbers would suggest. Indeed, as recently as 2007, when the BSP won a majority in the state, Ms. Mayawati’s successful wooing of Brahmins had ensured her not just a sizeable share of their votes – community leaders had used their position in society to influence other castes, too, to back the BSP.
If the Congress, therefore, succeeds in convincing Brahmins that it is worth backing, then, Muslims – who constitute about 15 per cent of the population in UP – may throw their weight behind it, party sources told The Hindu .
The Muslims, they say, want to support a party that can ensure that the BJP does not come to power – that party could be the Congress, the SP or the BSP. To this end, the Congress’s strategy, a senior party leader said, will be to show that the SP is hand in glove with the BJP in trying to communalise the situation, while the BSP has shared power with the BJP more than once, and therefore, neither can be trusted.
All this comes in the wake of a recent meeting of Brahmins at the residence of former Union minister Jitin Prasada, who has been a strong advocate of job reservations for poor upper castes. The meeting was attended by poll strategist Prashant Kishor, who is being given much of the credit for devising this strategy.
In addition, Brahmins and Rajputs are being encouraged to hold caste conventions “that will be attended by Congress leaders”. The Congress, on its own, will not hold such meetings because its calling card has been inclusiveness, something that party general secretary in charge of the state, Ghulam Nabi Azad, emphasised again, earlier this week. But desperate times call for desperate measures.