BJP skips Mandal talk, keeps core voter happy
NEW DELHI: But a crucial difference between the neighbouring states came through in the shrill UP campaign this season. In the battle for Lucknow, there has been no space for `backward' rhetoric, though poll cries riding on pending reservation issues is what turned the 2015 Bihar polls into a polarised contest.
This difference may prove critical to the contest's outcome on March 11. Two key OBC policies -increasing the salary bar for creamy layer and the OBC headcount in caste census still await the Centre's action.
After BJP lost Bihar, where Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar had cornered PM Narendra Modi for being `anti-backward' as part of the campaign calls, the Centre had looked as if it were on the verge of approving these policies. It was the logical thing to do, given that UP , similar to Bihar, has a strong backward population and is ruled by the Samajwadis, who like Lalu's RJD, were the primary beneficiaries of Mandalisation.
Yet, frequent official claims last year notwithstanding, the Centre desisted from acting on the twin issues. Observers attribute it to BJP's assumption that UP has no netas such as Lalu Prasad who can turn Mandal issues into a campaigning tool. There's also the assumption that UP has little ground for Mandal-based polarisation. BJP has simply steered clear of aggressive Mandal issues that tend to antagonise the upper castes -its primary support base.
The Centre is yet to announce names for the experts panel the Union cabinet approved in July 2015 to process the caste census that is expected to show the first-ever OBC count.
Ahead of the Bihar election in 2015, the lack of any action on this front was seized upon by OBC parties RJD, SP and JDU to disrupt Par liament. It provided ballast to Lalu Prasad's campaign that BJP was `anti backward'.
Raising the salary ceiling to avail 27% quota helps `richer' OBCs who're otherwise weeded out by the creamy layer exclusion criterion. The revision slated every three years is desperately awaited by OBCs for over a year since the nodal body NCBC gave its recommendation.
UP, post Babri, has witnessed a keen battle between Mandal and kamandal -BJP ranged against SP and BSP . In the 1990s, BJP success fully married the two antagonistic views in OBC neta Kalyan Singh, but now, with little evidence that society is split along such `back ward vs forward' lines, the Modi-propelled BJP has stepped up its 'communal' rhetoric.
This difference may prove critical to the contest's outcome on March 11. Two key OBC policies -increasing the salary bar for creamy layer and the OBC headcount in caste census still await the Centre's action.
After BJP lost Bihar, where Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar had cornered PM Narendra Modi for being `anti-backward' as part of the campaign calls, the Centre had looked as if it were on the verge of approving these policies. It was the logical thing to do, given that UP , similar to Bihar, has a strong backward population and is ruled by the Samajwadis, who like Lalu's RJD, were the primary beneficiaries of Mandalisation.
Yet, frequent official claims last year notwithstanding, the Centre desisted from acting on the twin issues. Observers attribute it to BJP's assumption that UP has no netas such as Lalu Prasad who can turn Mandal issues into a campaigning tool. There's also the assumption that UP has little ground for Mandal-based polarisation. BJP has simply steered clear of aggressive Mandal issues that tend to antagonise the upper castes -its primary support base.
The Centre is yet to announce names for the experts panel the Union cabinet approved in July 2015 to process the caste census that is expected to show the first-ever OBC count.
Ahead of the Bihar election in 2015, the lack of any action on this front was seized upon by OBC parties RJD, SP and JDU to disrupt Par liament. It provided ballast to Lalu Prasad's campaign that BJP was `anti backward'.
Raising the salary ceiling to avail 27% quota helps `richer' OBCs who're otherwise weeded out by the creamy layer exclusion criterion. The revision slated every three years is desperately awaited by OBCs for over a year since the nodal body NCBC gave its recommendation.
UP, post Babri, has witnessed a keen battle between Mandal and kamandal -BJP ranged against SP and BSP . In the 1990s, BJP success fully married the two antagonistic views in OBC neta Kalyan Singh, but now, with little evidence that society is split along such `back ward vs forward' lines, the Modi-propelled BJP has stepped up its 'communal' rhetoric.
