In a tactical move, the Bharatiya Janata (BJP) Party leadership recently appointed veteran Kurmi leader Pankaj Chaudhary to head the party in Uttar Pradesh (UP). He became the 15th state president and the fourth Kurmi to lead the party in the state. The decision could prove to be critical in winning the support of the community, with Apna Dal (AD) at the forefront, in eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP).
It says something about the state of politics when a dominant national
In a tactical move, the Bharatiya Janata (BJP) Party leadership recently appointed veteran Kurmi leader Pankaj Chaudhary to head the party in Uttar Pradesh (UP). He became the 15th state president and the fourth Kurmi to lead the party in the state. The decision could prove to be critical in winning the support of the community, with Apna Dal (AD) at the forefront, in eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP).
It says something about the state of politics when a dominant national party appoints a Kurmi president to influence the second largest OBC bloc after Yadavs, whose loyalties lay with the Samajwadi Party (SP); the Kurmis account for 7-8 per cent of the state’s population.
Kurmis, at least until now, have preferred a small party like the AD, which was floated by Kurmi leader Sone Lal Patel, the father of Union minister and current party president Anupriya Patel, primarily to give due representation to them in the political domain. His endeavour was to build a viable vote bank by combining Kurmis and Muslims on the lines of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) formula of a Dalit-Muslim combine. Will they now prefer the BJP in UP with a Kurmi state president?
Also, does such political appointments help parties to garner support of their respective castes? Perhaps, seven-time MP Chaudhary’s mettle merited the appointment more than his being a Kurmi.
There are numerous instances in the past when national parties have had to depend on one-man parties like the Nishad party or Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party to win the support of Nishads and Rajbhars in the state even though they might have limited influence over their caste.
There is a view among the leadership of political parties that such appointments, even though symbolic in nature, help them in battles of perception as politics is also about messaging. To be sure, such appointments work better when the leader is in the driving seat, as chief ministers are, instead of being just party presidents. In other words, Yogi Adityanath as CM will have more appeal than Yogi, the state president over the Rajput community. Late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was considered the tallest Brahmin leader, yet it was the Ram Mandir movement that drove large chunks of his caste to the BJP till he became PM. The Samajwadi Party (SP) was founded by Mulayam Singh Yadav, who politically empowered them, just as the BSP became the first choice of Dalits.
The Congress appointed Mallikarjun Kharge, a Dalit, as its national president. Though the Congress leaders here believe that it helped the party gain support of Scheduled Castes, it was actually the fear of an amendment to the constitution that drove Dalits towards the Congress and other non-BJP parties in the polls. Would it have been different had he been declared as the PM face of the INDIA bloc?
In the run-up to the 2027 assembly elections in the state, it remains to be seen whether the BJP’s decision to appoint a Kurmi as state president will benefit or boomerang on the party’s mission to reconsolidate the OBC vote bank. Its main rival, the SP, has already tested its PDA formula in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Kurmis have so far been divided between the BJP, SP and the Apna Dal in different pockets of the state.
While the gains would be known later, the appointment of an OBC to head the party could rattle the BJPs loyal voters, the Brahmins. Before the BJP launched an outreach programme to expand its Hindutva vote bank by bringing in OBCs and a section of Dalits under their banner, it was always considered to be an upper caste party as it enjoyed the unflinching support of Brahmins, Banias and Rajputs.
Soon after the appointment of a Kurmi as state president, Brahmin leaders of the state, including lawmakers, held a meeting to discuss their issues. The party high command, who had maintained a studied silence when Rajput MLAs had met a month back, issued a warning as caste groups and meetings do not fit into their slogan of Sarva Samaj.
The fact is every political player has to have a caste or a caste agenda in the northern states, especially UP and Bihar. And that’s why caste remains one of the decisive ingredients in making appointments, in distributing cabinet berths and election tickets. However, voters in all probability prefer mantri over adhyaksh.
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