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In its continued attempt to split Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s core constituency of Luv-Kush, the BJP is all set to embark on a 20-day “Luv-Kush Yatra” to Ayodhya to coincide with the consecration of the idol at the Ram Temple in the Uttar Pradesh town on January 22. Luv and Kush were the sons of Hindu deities Ram and Sita and in Bihar it is a political term for the alliance between the Koeri (Kushwaha) and Kurmi agricultural castes.
Starting from Patna on January 2, the party will travel through districts linked to the story of Ram and Sita and those with a sizable Kurmi-Koeri population. State BJP president Samrat Choudhary will flag off the yatra, which has been structured in a way so that all top local leaders from Koeri-Kurmi castes and local representatives, including MPs and MLAs, attend a part of the yatra.
The party has invited the heads and representatives of several religious organisations to join the yatra and has also planned havans and public meetings during the yatra that will pass through Vaishali, Sitamarhi, Valmiki Nagar, Purnia, Kishanganj, Katihar, Nawada, Nalanda, and Buxar before concluding in Ayodhya in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.
“The Luv-Kush community is grateful to PM Narendra Modi for the Ayodhya temple construction and for giving due respect to them. The yatra is just a way to express gratitude to the Central government and also pay respect to all important places connected with Lord Ram and Goddess Sita,” state BJP vice president Saroj Patel told The Indian Express.
After leaving Patna, the yatra will head to Vaishali and then make its way to Janki Sthan and Punaura Dham in Sitamarhi, the birthplace of Sita. “Our next stop is Valmiki Ashram in Valmiki Nagar in West Champaran. We will tell people about the importance of these historical and religious symbols”, said Patel, who added that two raths would be used for the march.
Asked if the symbolism of the yatra was a way of targeting Nitish, Patel said, “We have several important Luv-Kush leaders in our ranks. We have our state president Samrat Choudhary and Rajya Sabha MP Shambhu Patel and a senior leader such as Prem Ranjan Patel from these social groups and it is fallacious to call it a Nitish constituency.”
At a time when Bihar politics is witnessing a lot of social churn, with social combinations being revisited and reworked, the BJP is looking to dent Nitish’s social base. As per the Bihar caste survey report, Luv-Kush accounts for a little over 7% of the state’s population — Kurmis at 2.9% and Koeris at 4.2%.
While the BJP has Choudhary at the helm in the state, former JD (U) president and ex-Union minister R C P Singh is also in its ranks. The Rashtriya Lok Janata Dal’s Upendra Kushwaha, another former Nitish associate who quit the JD(U) to float his party earlier this year, has also aligned with the BJP and that will further boost the party’s Luv-Kush consolidation.
