The Marathi manoos who played a crucial role in the Bihar polls

BJP's Vinod Tawde studied Bihar's caste dynamics ahead of polls, contributing to the party's success in assembly elections despite caste issues.

MUMBAI: As the BJP’s poll observer in Bihar, former Maharashtra minister Vinod Tawde addressed the caste issue which has for long been a decisive factor in the state’s electoral narrative.

Mumbai, India - April 23, 2024: BJP leader Vinod Tawde addressing to media during press conference in Mumbai, India, on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (Photo by Anshuman Poyrekar/ Hindustan Times) (Hindustan Times)

Not willing to take any chances, given Bihar’s chaotic political profile, the BJP high command asked him to study the fluctuating caste equations in the state. “Such an elaborate exercise helps the party reach out to the last person in a village,” Tawde told HT.

The BJP-led five-party alliance, including Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) and the Lok Janshakti Party, swept the state assembly polls, decimated the Opposition’s Grand Alliance and bagged a two-thirds majority. The BJP, for the first time, emerged as the single largest party, winning 89 seats in the 243-strong state assembly.

Tawde, who enjoys the party high command’s trust as he, as Bihar observer, was instrumental in persuading Nitish Kumar to re-join the NDA in January 2024, will be in Patna as the decks are cleared for the swearing-in of the new regime. But he declined to comment on whether Nitish Kumar would be sworn in as CM. “Modi-ji and Amit-ji will decide,” he said.

No sooner did the BJP central leadership ask Tawde to take charge of the Bihar polls than he immersed himself in the state archives to study the caste conundrum. “Old election results showed me that caste had barely any role in the 1952 and 1957 elections,” he said. “After discussions with party seniors and community veterans who had witnessed the anti-caste crusade of Ram Manohar Lohia and the subsequent rise of caste leaders, I realised that caste loyalty assumed significance in the 1960s.”

Elaborating on this, Tawde said that earlier a Thakur could win from a Yadav bastion or a Brahmin from a Kurmi constituency but villagers soon realised the pitfalls. “The leaders would spend their funds exclusively on community members and ignore other social groups,” he said. “This triggered widespread casteism, and soon Yadavs began to demand party nomination for a Yadav and so on. Of course there were times when eminent Maharashtra leaders such as Madhu Limaye and George Fernandes swept Bihar in Lok Sabha polls.”

Despite his caste study, Tawde claimed that the BJP did not believe in garnering votes in the name of caste. “But Biharis, with their bitter experience in the first two Lok Sabha elections, came around to the view that only caste loyalty would help them get a share in power and expedite development in their villages,” he said. “Actually, the caste issue needs to be probed in detail by social scientists and political observers.”

Touring the state for three months, Tawde held extensive meetings with caste-community chieftains but said that eventually it was “PM Narendra Modi’s popularity and Nitish Kumar’s spotless record as administrator and his welfare schemes” that scored over casteism. “Don’t forget that the RJD suffered deep cracks in its time-tested Yadav-Muslim (M-Y) bastion in Bihar,” he added.

A senior Maharashtra BJP functionary, Tawde shifted base to New Delhi after being denied a nomination for the 2019 assembly elections. This, despite the fact that he was cabinet minister in the earlier regime.

Tawde refrained from sulking or pouring ire on the party leadership. “He bade his time, and it came when he was appointed BJP national general secretary in 2022,” said a close friend. “Since then, he has been concentrating on Bihar where he spends three days a week. He has begun to speak Bhojpuri and relishes Bihari delicacies like ‘litti chokha’.

A Mumbai-based media person who was present at the BJP’s post-poll celebration in Patna was happy to see newly elected BJP legislators feeding ‘laddoos’ to Tawde. “I thought he was a Mumbai migrant who made a splash in Bihar,” he exclaimed.