SP, BJP go all out for the OBC vote in U.P.’s Katehari

Standing at a tea shop in Katehari Assembly seat’s Gora Basantpur village, Piyush Nishad talks about a ‘chaupal’ (community gathering) he just attended that was addressed by the area MP (Ambedkar Nagar), Lalji Verma, of the Samajwadi Party (SP).

The 27-year-old recalls bits of speech by Mr. Verma, a leader from the Kurmi community who won the Katehari constituency in the 2022 election before the Ambedkar Nagar Lok Sabha seat, pertaining to the employment issue.

“He shared specific data about the government jobs’ scenario. About reservation criteria not being followed in several employment-related advertisements, legal hurdles creating backlogs in vacancies, and how he has been raising these issues,” says Mr. Nishad to an audience of seven persons.

Mr. Verma’s campaign for his wife Shobhawati Verma, who has been fielded from the Katehari constituency by the SP, is based on the twin planks of reservation and unemployment.

‘Battle for rights’

The SP alleges that the right to vote of people from the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and SC communities is under threat and that the byelection is an opportunity for those from disadvantaged backgrounds to save democracy.

“The right to vote has been given to us by Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar. If they try to snatch our right, we will do whatever it takes to protect it. The BJP is doing whatever it can to weaken democratic structures,” said senior SP leader and party in-charge of the seat Shivpal Singh Yadav.

Katehari, which has a sizeable presence of OBC and Scheduled Caste voters, is among the nine Assembly seats in the State where bypolls will be held on Wednesday.

While the SP is trying to woo the 4 lakh voters here with the issues of jobs and reservation, along with the PDA (Pichde, Dalit, Alpasankhyak) formula, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has pegged its campaign on the issue of the work done for the OBCs by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Centre.

The ruling party has fielded Dharamraj Nishad from Katehari.

He has won the constituency thrice — in 1996, 2002, and 2007 — as a Bahujan Samaj Party candidate.

Mr. Nishad was in the news recently due to his hoardings telling voters: ‘Ya to abki jitaay do ya fir tithki par litaay do’ (Either help me win this time or place me on the deathbed).

Addressing a rally in Phuhalpur village on Sunday, the BJP nominee said most of the Ministers in the Union Cabinet are from the OBC communities.

He added, “It was the Modi government that gave constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes.”

‘One region, one caste’

“No other party has given more respect to the disadvantaged communities than the BJP. The SP cheated us and focused on one region and one caste,” he also said.

The BJP has deployed a battery of political leaders from the Kurmi (around 70,000 voters), Rajbhar (50,000 voters), and Nishad (around 70,000 voters) communities in the constituency, including senior State Minister Swatantra Dev Singh, NISHAD party chief Sanjay Nishad, and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party president Om Prakash Rajbhar, with an eye on the OBC votes. However, the party faces an uphill task, given that it hasn’t won the seat since 1991.

Published - November 19, 2024 01:41 am IST