Lucknow: With just four months to go before assembly elections in UP. All the political parties of the state seems busy wooing voters of different social strata and caste. BJP too is worried due to the momentum, Samajwadi Party (SP) is gaining, before the upcoming elections. Meanwhile, BJP’s poll strategist Amit Shah seems determined to get more than 300 seats in UP.
Meanwhile, in order to achieve this, the BJP’s poll strategist is leaving no stone unturned to woo the voters from across the section be it (Other Backward Caste (OBC) 40%, upper caste 18% or Dalits 22%. Even the party is going one step ahead to attract Muslim voters.
Read also: New faces to lead in 2022 UP elections
BJP believe that elections is a game of numbers, so they are using every tricks in the book to wield their social engineering formula. BJP through their caste based conclaves is trying to stitch the coalition of nearly 200 OBCs in UP, which no other party has ever thought, by incentivizing and awarding ministerial berths with more representation,’’ says senior political commentator, RM Lal.
Although people are talking about OBC; but the BJP has gone one step ahead to lure the state’s 19 percent Muslims, which either votes to SP or BSP, but around 1 to 2 percent Muslim also votes for the saffron party. Even in the last election BJP has been successful in the Muslim dominated areas of western UP.
BJP has put special emphasis towards Muslim-dominated seats, where the party has lost by a thin margin in the 2017 assembly polls. With increased strength of Muslims and population benefiting immensely from the central and state’s welfare scheme.
Read also: SP after BSP too is wooing Brahmin voters ahead of 2022 UP elections
Meanwhile, apart from OBC and Muslims, BJP is also trying to cement their bond with non-Jatav voters which voted and stayed with BJP since 2014 elections in UP.
BJP doesn’t want to lose the non-Yadav OBC vote bank which it acquired after 2014. So the party is organizing conclaves (sammelans) of major castes of OBC’s like Nishads, Kashyaps, Telis, Sahus, Kushwahas, and Prajapatis, to counter some influential backward castes switching association to SP. It’s a reality in UP and elections that caste symbolism is something which none of the political parties can deny.
