OBC votes in play, BJP and SP to celebrate Sonelal Patel’s legacy same day, same place

Anupriya is a Union minister and her husband Ashish is a UP Cabinet minister. The Apna Dal (K) is allied with the SP. Pallavi contested last year’s Assembly elections on an SP ticket and defeated Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya from Sirathu in Kaushambi district. The two Apna Dals derive their support from Kurmis, an OBC community that is an electorally crucial factor in east and central UP districts such as Mirzapur, Varanasi, Chandauli, Prayagraj, Kaushambi, Pratapgarh, Fatehpur, Basti, Gonda, Bahraich, Bhadohi, and Sonbhadra.

Pallavi told The Indian Express that SP president Akhilesh Yadav would attend her party’s event. “We invite those leaders whose political ideology matches with Dr Sonelal ji,” said the MLA.

The Apna Dal (S) event will be attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and CM Yogi Adityanath. State BJP president Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary and various state Cabinet ministers have also been invited. The Apna Dal (S) has also invited Sanjay Nishad, the president of another ally Nishad Party and a Cabinet minister. While the Apna Dal (S) claims the support of Kurmis and some other OBC groups, the Nishad Party’s base is the community of fishermen in riverine areas in eastern UP, central UP, and Bundelkhand.

The battle for UP in next year’s Lok Sabha elections will, to a large extent, hinge on how the fight for OBC votes plays out. A Social Justice Committee set up in 2001 by then UP CM Rajnath Singh estimated OBCs constitute 43.13% of the state’s population. The BJP came to power in UP with their support in the 2017 and 2022 Assembly polls and won the maximum number of Lok Sabha seats in the state in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. To upend that equation, the SP — which received a boost in last year’s Assembly elections after several non-Yadav OBC leaders joined its ranks — has been projecting itself as a party of Dalits and OBCs since the Ramcharitmanas row earlier this year and has renewed its push for a caste census in UP.

In response, the BJP, initially non-committal about a caste census, indicated it was not opposed to the exercise. For the last 30 years, the party has worked to build a base among non-Yadav OBCs to take on the SP’s formidable Yadav-Muslim combine. If it has to maintain its hold on OBC votes, parties such as the Apna Dal (S) and Nishad Party will be crucial. The Apna Dal (S) fielded 17 candidates in last year’s Assembly polls and emerged as the third-largest party in the state after the BJP and the SP with 12 MLAs. The BJP, according to sources, is also looking to bring back to its alliance fold the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) that has some hold over OBC communities such as Rajbhars, Mauryas, and Kushwahas in east UP. According to the party’s calculations, the SBSP can help it in at least 12 Lok Sabha seats in east UP.

State BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi said Sonelal Patel made major contributions to social service and politics. “Whenever the BJP is invited to programmes organised in memory of such great leaders, it always participates. As far as OBC votes are concerned, the BJP now gets votes from every section of society and has given important positions to OBCs in the government and organisation. Various parties have their influence in a particular community and area. Joining hands with them mutually helps both the BJP and these parties.”