Congress goes for the upper caste to bag reserved seats in UP polls

The Congress strategy for the reserved seats — those for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates — in Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections is simple; target the dominant castes.

The conventional wisdom is that the scales are heavily weighted in favour of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in constituencies reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates. Realising that the 20 per cent Dalit vote in the state will by and large remain with the BSP, the Congress has turned its attention to the other castes in the constituency.

The Congress has undertaken to break down every constituency according to the caste profile and then try to rope in the dominant castes for support. For instance in Safipur (SC) seat in central UP, there are 3,10,495 voters. Of these Brahmins constitute 35,550; Thakurs 31,650 and Muslims 35,145. Therefore Brahmins and Thakurs will be key to bagging the seat here. The Congress’ committee for SC seats is approaching Brahmins here, seeking the support of the prominent leaders among them to address the community.

Rahul Gandhi, who is leading the Congress charge in Uttar Pradesh, has designated Chairman of Scheduled Castes Commission (and Congress MP from Barabanki) P L Punia to solely focus on these constituencies. The Congress strategy here is to woo non-Dalit castes, including Brahmins and Thakurs, to bag the reserved seats. Scheduled Castes account for 30 per cent of the population in the reserved seats.

The 403-member UP Assembly has 85 seats reserved for SC, down from 89 in the last elections, because of delimitation. In the last Assembly polls, BSP swept 61 of the 89 reserved seats. But the Congress is hoping to change all that this time.

A similar strategy has long been perfected by the BJP. To garner maximum votes for its Scheduled Castes candidate, the BJP ensures that it keeps the interests of its traditional votebank — the upper castes — in mind, who then they would rally around the candidate. “Timid” candidates who are respectful of the upper caste, and “not too militant” like the Dalit candidates of the BSP, are selected.

To present a SC-friendly image before the electorate, the Congress has also fielded three SC candidates from general seats — including prominent Dalit activist Nirmal Paswan from Pipraich.

Several senior Congress leaders said they will gain to some extent from the divide in the Dalit vote of the BSP.

“We have found that even among the Dalits; the Jatavs or the Chamars constitute 50 per cent. There are non-Jatavs as well among the Dalits, so we can hope to capitalise on that,” said a senior Congress leader closely connected with the working of a committee for SC seats. The panel is also working on improving the prospects of its SC candidate. It has appointed a coordinator for each of the relevant constituency.

In addition to that, Punia is engaged in planning the electoral campaign of these candidates, recognising the fact that most of them suffer from resource deficit. The earlier approach was naming an SC candidate and leaving him to fend for himself. The current approach is to actively work alongside the candidate and engage with the electorate to better his chances.