It has been a milestone decade for the BJP since 2014 with a literal turnaround in the perception of it being an upper-caste party to being most socially representative of all political formations in the country today. At the core of the strategy are policies focusing on the uplift and development of SCs/STs and OBCs. The best step has been Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking it upon himself to facilitate a tighter embrace between the BJP and these marginalised sections. This turnaround may have a great impact even in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Validating this argument are numbers that show how Modi’s initiatives are helping maintain the BJP’s cross-caste coalition and nation-first ideology. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, around 34 per cent of Dalits voted for the BJP, compared with 24 per cent in 2014. A similar change has also been seen in the OBC vote. In the 2023 Assembly elections in four states, the constituencies reserved for SCs saw a swing in favour of the saffron party. It appears that the progressive strategy of the BJP has worked electorally.
Of the 98 of these reserved seats in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana, the BJP won 57 and the Congress got 40. The Bahujan Samaj Party, whose primary base used to be the Dalits, performed miserably in all the states that it contested. The BJP’s performance in the reserved constituencies has seen a gradual rise. Currently, 131 Lok Sabha seats are reserved, of which 84 are for the Scheduled Castes and 47 for the Scheduled Tribes. The BJP won 77 seats in 2019 elections and 67 in 2014. The Congress could win only ten constituencies in 2019.
This is significant in view of the usual narrative being floated by the opposition that the BJP is primarily an upper-caste party. They seem to be unable to come to terms with the fact that a sizable chunk of the BJP voters are now from the backward and marginalised castes. Since 2014, a plethora of pro-poor schemes have been launched and the biggest beneficiaries have been the Dalits, OBCs and tribals. The shift of the Dalit, OBC and tribal voters to the BJP should become a cause of worry for the opposition parties especially Congress.
Modi, who himself is an OBC, has brought about a sea change in the BJP’s reach among different communities and castes. The PM has himself said that “the biggest achievement of his government in the last ten years is to bring 25 crore people out of poverty”. The opposition, on the other hand, while trying to raise the caste pitch, seems to be ignoring the fact that results have repeatedly exhibited the mindset of the masses. With a range of schemes to the poorer sections, majority from the Dalit and other backward sections, Modi has touched a responsive chord with them.
