As darkness falls in the typical hamlet of Rajbhars in Kinnupur village, a dim-light bulb reveals the grim existence of Nirmal Rajbhar and his family.
The inner wall of his brick hut is blackened by the smoke of the chulha his wife uses to cook. The family did not get free cooking gas connection or even a toilet. An open drain runs past their courtyard where their only sign of worth, a couple of buffaloes, is tied to a beam.
“I filled the form for the toilet and house. But nothing came. Some have got it, some haven’t. We got nothing from [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi,” said Mr. Nirmal.
But there is something else that has alienated Mr. Nirmal from the BJP. The insult of his caste leader Om Prakash Rajbhar, president of Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party. An ally of the BJP since 2017, Mr. Rajbhar, a Cabinet Minister in U.P., is now on the rebellion path, out to hurt the BJP in Purvanchal by pulling his community support away from it.
Symbol issue
Though on collision course for over a year, mostly over the issue of non-implementation of the sub-categorisation of the OBC quota, the trigger came when the BJP denied Mr. Rajbhar a seat on his symbol. “What would have the BJP lost? He was only asking for one ticket [Ghosi],” said Mr. Nirmal. His vote in 2019 is for the ‘stick’, the symbol of the SBSP.
Even Manjeet (20), who lives on the other side of the village, argued that Mr. Rajbhar has done the right thing by going solo. He awakened the political awareness of the Rajbhars and it was needed to save their political identity, he said. The SBSP has supported Mr. Manjeet’s education.
“He [Mr. Rajbhar] fights for the truth. That’s why even while with the BJP, he did not blindly follow it,” said Mr. Manjeet. His mother was quick to add, “When supporters of the lotus and elephant don’t abandon them, why should we leave our stick?”
This is a common question being asked by the Rajbhars across parts of Purvanchal, and it’s bothering the BJP which had gained heavily from ts alliance with the SBSP in 2017, winning 312 seats on its own.
Though Mr. Rajbhar himself is not contesting the election, he has fielded over 40 candidates, mostly Rajbhars, and is campaigning with a vengeance to show the BJP what it has lost.
A good section of Rajbhar vote has moved with him, away from the BJP. In both Ghosi and Ghazipur, the SBSP has fielded candidates to hurt the interests of sitting BJP MPs Harinarayan Rajbhar and Manoj Sinha. The latter faces a daunting caste matrix.
Prakash Rajbhar, a farmer, lauded the PM-KISAN scheme, under which he received ₹2,000, 20-hour power supply and a new toilet at his house. But his vote, he said, is to preserve his political identity. “They [BJP] didn’t give Rajbhars the respect we deserved,” said Mr. Prakash.
Impact in eastern U.P.
Though estimated to be around 2% of the State’s population, the Rajbhars are mostly concentrated in eastern U.P., and can impact the results in Salempur, Ghazipur, Ballia, Chandauli, Ghosi and Bansgaon, where polling is scheduled for May 19. An SBSP leader said the community is effective in 70 Assembly segments, with votes ranging from 10,000-80,000 in each.
But Mr. Rajbhar’s faltering credibility, political flip-flops and Mr. Modi’s appeal and Hindutva and welfare outreach of the RSS among the Rajbhars mean the damage could be mitigated in some areas for the BJP.
The Rajbhar vote is unlikely to shift to the SP-BSP due to the strong anti-Yadav and anti-Jatav sentiment cultivated among them by Mr. Rajbhar himself. In 2002, after leaving the Bahujan Samaj Party, Mr. Rajbhar formed the SBSP. In 2016, he allied with the BJP in U.P. and a year later helped it form the government in the State.
Dinesh Rajbhar, a mason, says Modi, and not Om Prakash, is his leader now. Dinesh remembers how villagers paraded Om Prakash and weighed him in coins when he came here during his early days and triggered their political fantasy.
“With power, he forgot us. He and his sons got ministerial posts. But what did they do for the Rajbhar caste,” asked Dinesh. He accuses Om Prakash of going silent on his agenda after the BJP awarded his son Arvind a ministerial status right before polls.
While some Rajbhars say Om Prakash has lost connect with them and stopped visiting them after 2017, others accuse him of using them as pawns and squandering his opportunity while in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet. “He has sold the Rajbhars and Suheldev for his own interests. From 2002, when he formed his party, I was with him. But now he's gone astray. Will he become a PM fighting on his symbol alone,” asks Baliram Rajbhar, a painter. In his village, most Rajbhars are yet to receive pucca homes. But Baliram is thankful to the BJP government for providing the community hamlet toilets, power-supply and roads.
Rajaram Rajbhar, another old ally-turned-critic of Om Prakash, says Om Prakash did nothing to check on the community or alleviate their backwardness despite being cabinet minister since 2017. “He only visits us during voting now,” said Rajaram. Though the Rajbhars here are critical of the Yogi Adityanath government for not implementing the sub-categorization of OBC quota, they also question Om Prakash's approach over it and say quitting the BJP alliance only reduces his bargaining power towards that.
“OBC quota is not something that can be plucked out of the pocket and given,’ said Dinesh.
After coming to power, the BJP government made concerted steps to popularise Suheldev: new statue unveiled in Bahraich, a new tri-weekly train running from New Delhi to Ghazipur named after Suheldev and a stamp on Suheldev released by Mr. Modi himself.
All this accompanied with years of the RSS projecting Suheldev as a Hindutva icon who stopped the islamicization of the region and pitching his followers against Muslims.
But Om Prakash, known for baiting the BJP with provocative statements and playing the Opposition's role for the most of the last two years, claims his community is with him and the BJP will feel its impact on May 23.
BJP will win only three out of the 30 seats in Purvanchal, he said. “I will quit politics if they win a fourth.”
