In Rajasthan, BJP bets on OBC, MBC faces, but keeps upper caste focus

With the non-BJP parties again trying to combat the BJP’s Hindutva plank or Kamandal with Mandal politics calling for social justice and adequate representation of backward castes in the run-up to the the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress-led Rajasthan government led by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has also announced a caste survey.

A caste analysis of the list of candidates fielded by the BJP for the state’s 200 Assembly seats shows the party’s efforts to woo the backward class communities while also maintaining its outreach to the party’s traditional vote banks among upper castes such as Rajputs, Brahmins and Baniyas.

The BJP has fielded 60 OBC (Other Backward Classes) candidates that account for 30 per cent of the party’s total nominees in this election. The BJP leaders from the Jat community, which is the most dominant OBC group in Rajasthan, have got 31 tickets, while other relatively smaller OBC groups such as Yadav, Kumawat, Bishnoi, Saini, Patel, Nagar, Ravana Rajput and Dhakad have got 29 tickets.

The Gujjar community, which is the most dominant in the MBC (Most Backward Classes) category in the state, has been given 10 tickets by the BJP. When this is added to its OBC candidates, the overall tally of the party’s backward class nominees rises to 70 or 35 per cent of its total candidates.

When it comes to the Scheduled Castes (SCs), the BJP has fielded 35 SC candidates for the elections. Apart from the 34 reserved seats in the state Assembly for the SC category, the BJP has also nominated a Dalit candidate from an unreserved seat. The BJP candidates from the SC category thus make up 17.5 per cent of the BJP’s candidate list.

Similarly, the BJP has fielded 29 tribal candidates, of whom four have been nominated from the unreserved seats and the remaining from the 25 seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes (STs) in the state. As a result, the ST candidates account for 14.5 per cent of the party’s total nominees.

As regards the upper castes or general category, the BJP has nominated 27 Rajput candidates and 19 Brahmin faces in this election besides fielding 17 nominees from trader and other communities such as Jain, Sindhi, Rajpurohit and Punjabi. With 63 candidates out of 200, the upper caste faces in the BJP list account for 31.5 per cent of its candidates.

The BJP has also fielded three candidates from the Sikh community for the elections.

The party has nominated 20 women candidates – 10 per cent of its total nominees – even as the state BJP leaders have been playing up the party-led Central government’s achievement of passing the Women’s Reservation Bill to provide 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies.

The BJP has, however, not fielded a single Muslim candidate this time. In the 2018 polls, it had nominated a lone Muslim face, Yunus Khan, who lost the election. Yunus has quit the BJP over denial of ticket this time.

BJP’s total candidates: 200 out of 200 seats

Backward class candidates:

OBCs – 60 (31 Jats, 29 from other OBC communities)

MBCs – 10 (Gujjars)

Total OBC, MBC nominees – 70

Upper caste candidates:

Rajputs – 27

Brahmins – 19

Trader and other communities – 17

Total upper caste nominees – 63

SC candidates – 35

ST candidates – 29

Women candidates – 20

Sikhs – 3

Muslims – 0