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Uttar Pradesh: Swatantra Dev Singh’s elevation shows BJP’s Kurmi focus for 2024 Lok Sabha polls
Three of Yogi Adityanath’s ministers were defeated by Kurmi candidates of the Samajwadi Party in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls
The appointment of state’s Jal Shakti minister Swatantra Dev Singh, 58, as the leader of the Upper House of the Uttar Pradesh legislature is being seen as the party’s outreach in the buildup to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls towards such non-Yadav OBC communities among whom the BJP doesn’t have an impressive array of homegrown leaders.
Swatantra Dev Singh is a Kurmi leader, a numerically dominant non-Yadav OBC subcaste.
Forty-one lawmakers belonging to this caste were elected to the UP assembly in the 2022 polls. This was seven more than in the 2017 elections.
Three of Yogi Adityanath’s ministers were defeated by Kurmi candidates of the Samajwadi Party in the assembly polls. Those who lost included deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, Rajendra Pratap Singh ‘Moti babu’, the then minister for rural development, and Chandrika Upadhyaya, minister of state for PWD.
“Statistically speaking, despite the BJP winning the 2022 UP polls, the Samajwadi Party gained more Kurmi support than us. This time 22 Kurmi lawmakers won on our ticket, four less than in the 2017 UP polls. The SP on the other hand had 13 Kurmi lawmakers winning the elections, an impressive leap from two Kurmi lawmakers who had won in 2017. At seven places, the Kurmi candidates put up by the Samajwadi Party defeated our candidates,” said a BJP leader, explaining Swatantra Dev Singh’s elevation.
For two back-to-back terms (2017 and 2022), more Kurmi lawmakers have been getting elected to the Uttar Pradesh assembly than Yadavs, who head the OBC pool. In 2017, 17 Yadav lawmakers were elected to the assembly, this time there are 25 lawmakers from the key OBC caste.
This time, five Kurmi lawmakers won on the BJP ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) symbol, one more than in the 2017 U.P. election.
“Since 2014, the BJP is in alliance with the Apna Dal (Sonelal), a regional party that has appeal among Kurmis, primarily because the BJP lacked a popular Kurmi leader. Swatantra Dev’s elevation as the state BJP chief in 2019 was due to the party’s desire to boost its homegrown Kurmi leadership. Now, since he has been made a minister of a key portfolio like Jal Shakti, Swatantra will soon relinquish his state BJP chief’s post. That’s why, his elevation as leader of the Upper House in the state legislature ahead of his relinquishing the state chief’s post is in line with the party’s plan ahead of 2024 LS polls,” said Athar Siddiqui of the Centre for Objective Research and Development (CORD).
“Kurmis are present across the state from Mirzapur, from where Apna Dal (S) leader Anupriya Patel is a Lok Sabha MP and where incidentally Swatantra Dev was born, to PM Modi’s Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, Chandauli, Pratapgarh, Bareilly, Barabanki, Lakhimpur Kheri and parts of Bundelkhand. There are several Lok Sabha constituencies with Kurmi support. Naturally, the BJP wants to plug the dip in its Kurmi support base,” Siddiqui added.
At another level, the move reflects chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s growing clout within the party as Swatantra is seen as a Yogi loyalist, party leaders indicated.
In 2019, soon after his appointment as the state BJP chief, Swatantra Dev had lost his finger which was crushed in the crevices of his car door while he was on tour.
“He lost a finger but was on the ground the very next day. Since 1988, when he became the secretary (organisation) of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, he has consistently worked hard. I think the party leadership must have seen this ability of his and elevated him,” a BJP leader said.
“I will fulfil whatever responsibility I have been given in the party and in the council. Under PM Modi’s guidance and CM Yogi’s leadership, the state is on its way to becoming the country’s best state. The government’s development and zero tolerance to corruption agenda would get a further boost,” Swatantra Dev said on his appointment.
