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Seeking to expand its support base in Bihar by stepping up its social engineering, the central BJP is all set to hold a joint meeting of all its seven frontal organisations – including its youth, women, farmers, Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and minorities wings – in Patna during July 30-31. It will be the BJP’s first such joint meeting of its wings that will involve about 700 delegates from across the country.
A section of these delegates would also visit each of 200 Assembly segments across Bihar during July 28-29, where the BJP has lined up a set of 11 events as part of its preparations for the next Assembly elections slated in 2025.
The BJP has deftly chosen to focus on these 200 Assembly seats to push its social engineering move, leaving 43 seats won by its junior ally JD (U) in the 2020 Assembly polls.
In each of these 200 constituencies, the leaders from the BJP’s national wings would attend various social and political functions such as interactions with stake-holders including “labharthis (beneficiaries)” of various welfare schemes of the party-ruled Central government. All of them would then come to Patna with their feedback and attend the two-day conclave that will be inaugurated by party national president JP Nadda. Union home minister Amit Shah will attend its closing session.
In the 243-member Bihar Assembly, the BJP has currently 77 MLAs as compared to the JD(U)’s 45, while the principal Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has 79 MLAs.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP-led NDA had swept the entire state, when the BJP bagged 17 seats and the JD(U) 16 with the then Ram Vilas Paswan-led LJP picking 6 seats. Of the Opposition’s “grand alliance” parties, the Congress had then managed to win just one Lok Sabha seat while the RJD had drawn a blank.
Despite being a senior partner in the ruling NDA coalition in the state, the saffron party let JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar take over and continue as the Chief Minister, even though the relations of the two allies have often remained strained and volatile. As the BJP looks to broadbase its footprint as part of its “Mission 200” in the run up to the 2025 Assembly polls, Nitish is clearly not going to be amused.
Bihar BJP president Dr Sanjay Jaiswal told The Indian Express: “During the Patna conclave, we will have altogether 12 sessions. It would also have a training session and an exhibition on the socio-political theme”. He refrained from spelling out the reasons and parameters for selecting 200 Assembly that the party would now focus on.
Pointing out that this is the first time that the BJP is holding a joint meeting of all its seven national wings, party spokesperson Santosh Pathak said, “We, however, did carry out the experiment of sending our national-level office bearers to the Assembly segments in Telengana recently. Now that two-three national-level leaders would visit each of the 200 Bihar Assembly seats, it would be quite exciting to see its feedback.”
Besides Jaiswal, some of the senior BJP leaders who have been assigned the task of organising the Patna conclave include national secretary and Bihar party co-incharge Harish Dwivedi, party general secretary (organisation) Bhikhu Bhai Dalsania and all state BJP ministers. All state BJP MLAs would assist the visiting national leaders in the Assembly constituencies across Bihar.
The BJP seems to have drawn up strategies to boost its social engineering plans. A major chunk of votes of people belonging to the Extreme Backward Classes (EBCs), which make up about 30 per cent of Bihar’s population, is still fragmented with the BJP, JD(U) and RJD vying with each other to claim it. With EBC Mallah leader Mukesh Sahani being pushed to the margins of state politics, there has been a fresh churn among the EBC communities now.
Similarly, a large chunk of Dalit votes is also up for grabs, even as SCs account for 16 per cent of the state’s population. With LJP founder Ram Vilas Paswan no more and his son and Jamui MP Chirag Paswan locked in a protracted, bitter conflict with his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras, other parties including the BJP also seem to be sensing an opportunity with regard to about 4.5 per cent Paswan votes in the state.
Seeking to play down the BJP’s aggressive expansion plan in Bihar, senior JD(U) leader and its national spokesperson KC Tyagi, however, said: “There is not much to read into an event of our ally BJP. We are different parties with separate programmes. What matters for us is our sustained commitments for backwards and the deprived. It was then Janata Party CM Karpoori Thakur who first brought the concept of EBCs and OBCs and gave separate quota to women and poor in the general category in 1978. Mandal Commission followed it up with Annexture I (EBCs) and Annexture II (OBCs).”
Tyagi also said, “Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has been instrumental in getting caste census for the state, something being followed by other states. Our workers have been carrying out marches at block levels to show gratitude to our leader as caste census would give clarity on formulation of policies and programmes for the people.”
