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.