BJP’s OBC outreach for six poll-bound states

NEW DELHI:  With an eye on garnering the support of OBCs in six states where assembly elections will be held over the next year and the Lok Sabha polls in 2024, the BJP will deliberate on electoral strategies at its two-day National Working Committee (NWC) beginning September 9 at Jodhpur in Rajasthan.

The BJP’s national office bearers will hold intensive discussions with the heads of the party’s OBC front in these states, including Rajasthan, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, during the Jodhpur conclave. The objective would be to hold elaborate and threadbare discussions on ways to bring the OBCs into the BJP’s mainstream politics.

This would be the second such meeting after the BJP’s National Executive Committee of all party fronts held recently in Patna. Union Home Minister and the BJP’s principal election strategist Amit Shah will attend the party’s OBC Morcha NWC on September 10. He will also address a separate conference of OBC booth-level committees following the NWC meeting.

Since the Mandal Commission recommendations, OBCs constitute 54% of the Indian population and play a decisive role in elections. Since assuming power at the Centre in 2014, the BJP has inducted 27 ministers belonging to different castes within the OBC category.

A day before the NWC kicks off on September 9, all party office bearers and senior leaders associated with the front will meet a cross-section of OBCs in different parts of Jodhpur and take stock of the problems they face and invite feedback. BJP OBC Morcha National General Secretary Dr Nikhil Anand said, “the front takes pride that PM Modi has emerged as a champion of OBCs after granting constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Castes”.