First time Brahmins, Thakurs saw eye to eye

LUCKNOW: It is probably for the first time in the electoral history of Uttar Pradesh that arch-rivals, Brahmins and Thakurs, the two most dominant upper castes, in the state came together and voted for BJP, contributing to its massive mandate.

Brahmins constitute around 11 per cent and Thakurs about 8 per cent of the state's electorate.

However, the saffron party gave three more seats to Thakurs as compared to Brahmins to discount the possibility of a fragmentation of the vote-bank since several Thakur leaders like Arvind Singh Gope are either with Samajwadi Party or like Raghuraj Pratap Singh supporting it. BJP had already nominated Shiv Prakash Shukla from Gorakhpur in Rajya Sabha and Kalraj Mishra was retained in the Cabinet despite completing 75 years of age.

The fault lines between the two dominant upper-caste communities widened in the post-Mandal era, mainly in central and eastern part of the state, before BJP was able to draw them to its side after the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.

As BJP under Modi and Shah, was confident of getting support of Thakurs and Brahims, the saffron outfit got elbow room for wooing non-Yadav, non-Jat OBCs.

After emergence of regional parties like SP and BSP, the two dominant castes, deprived of power for years, had drifted to various parties with Brahmins acting as the architect of the BSP win in 2007.

Thakurs got cosy with the Samajwadi Party with several leaders like Singh and Gope holding key portfolios in Akhilesh Yadav's ministry.

BJP's huge margin of victory goes to prove that, in these elections, Thakurs and Brahmins firmly aligned themselves with the saffron party than with individual candidates as all parties including SP and BSP fielded candidates from the two castes.