BJP chief Amit Shah arrives at Patna airport yesterday.

IANS
Patna

The Bharatiya Janata Party is playing the backward castes card to woo voters in Bihar which holds crucial assembly elections starting next month.
In order to woo the Dalits, Other Backward Castes (OBCs) and Extremely Backward Castes (EBCs), the party has ruled out any ‘sawarna’ (upper caste) person becoming the chief minister if the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance wins two-thirds majority.
With ‘caste’ factor, re-entrenched by the recommendations for reservations by the Mandal Commission again dominating the campaigning for Bihar polls, senior BJP leader and federal minister Giriraj Singh said that the next chief minister would be either from the Dalits, OBCs or EBCs and not from an upper caste.
“An upper caste cannot become the chief minister of Bihar; it is certain that if the BJP-led NDA comes to power, the next chief minister will be either from the OBCs or EBCs,” the minister - who belongs to the powerful and landed Bhumihar upper caste with a strong presence in state politics - told reporters here.
The BJP leader played this ‘backward caste chief minister card’ two days after Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav said the Bihar assembly polls were a fight between the backward and forward castes.
The BJP leader’s statement reflected the ground reality in Bihar and sent out a political message to OBCs and EBCs, who constitute around 50% of the voters in the state.
“Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar should not worry about the upper castes; they are playing their caste politics to create divide and hatred in society,” Singh said.
However, going by the NDA list of candidates for the polls, it is clear that the party is essentially relying on the upper castes in the five-phase elections.
Of the 243 seats in the assembly, the four NDA parties have given tickets to 85 upper caste candidates, including 36 Rajputs and 28 Bhumihars.
On the other hand, the grand alliance of the Janata Dal-United, RJD and the Congress has fielded 64 Yadavs - 48 of them by the RJD alone - apart from 33 Muslims. It reflects Yadav’s faith in his traditional social support base of MY (Muslim-Yadav).
The grand alliance is also relying heavily on the OBCs Koeris and Kurmis. Thirty Koeris and 17 Kurmis, who belong to Nitish Kumar’s caste, have been fielded by the grand alliance.
The NDA has not declared its chief ministerial candidate and BJP president Amit Shah and other senior leaders have repeatedly said that the decision will be taken after the polls.
According to political observers, despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for ending caste-based politics in Bihar, a deep-rooted tussle in the BJP between leaders of the upper and other backward castes during the assembly polls has put the party in a dilemma.
Perhaps realising the problem, Modi and Shah are taking steps to ensure that none of these leaders is allowed to dominate the public discourse till the elections end, fearing it may anger either of the groups and thereby lead to erosion of the party’s social support base.
In the caste-ridden Bihar politics, over half-a-dozen BJP leaders from the upper castes and the backward castes have staked claims to the chief ministerial chair. “All of them are lobbying hard,” a BJP leader said.
The elections will be held between October 12 and November 5. The counting of votes will be taken up on November 8.
lCongress president Sonia Gandhi and her son and party vice president Rahul Gandhi will address nearly 20 rallies of the grand alliance in the run-up to the Bihar polls.
Sonia will address at least two rallies in Kahalgaon assembly segment in Bhagalpur district and Vajirganj constituency in Gaya districts on October 3.
She will also address three rallies on October 17 in different assembly segments.
“With different Congress candidates seeking her rallies in their respective constituencies during campaigning, she may visit the state in early November to address two or three more rallies,” a senior party leader said.