New Delhi: The selection of candidates by Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar for the Lok Sabha polls is perhaps the most pertinent example to understand how the Mandal parties have attempted to reinvent themselves in a political climate where the dominant Bharatiya Janata Party has usurped much of their political standing.
As the 2024 Lok Sabha polls are right around the corner, both the parties are taking special care to nominate members of those caste groups that were considered either conventionally inimical to them or those who could not find much representation in their scheme of social justice politics. Although the parties have not yet declared their full list of candidates, the list those who have been declared as nominees for the first two phases of Lok Sabha polls clearly reflects a substantive churn within these parties.
These Mandal parties have often come under criticism for their failure to look beyond their traditional Muslim-Yadav social base, a weakness that the BJP could exploit by persistently shedding light on under-represented Other Backward Class and Dalit communities and making substantive inroads among them. The rainbow social coalition of ‘upper’ caste groups, non-dominant OBCs, and underrepresented Dalit groups have allowed the saffron party to create a consistent over-40% vote share.
In the years preceding 2014, both Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal could form state governments on their own with around 30% vote share in multi-cornered contests. Usually, if they could secure the support of one or two dominant communities in their respective states apart from their mainstay Muslim-Yadav combination, they could bring themselves to touch this winning mark.
However, once the BJP could consolidate its position among non-dominant communities – which are in a majority but remained scattered as groups for a long time – it could push its vote share to nearly 50% in Uttar Pradesh and around 40% in Bihar in alliance with Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United). With the domineering presence of the BJP in the Hindi heartland, all elections ended up becoming bi-polar fights, with the opposition votes consolidating under one banner. This has also forced even inimical opposition parties to come together to challenge the BJP and, more importantly, nudged them towards becoming more inclusive social-justice parties.
Tejashwi Yadav with Vikassheel Insaan Party founder Mukesh Sahani. Photo: X/@yadavtejashwi
‘A to Z’
Over the last few years, both SP and RJD have shown willingness to correct their course and have intermittently addressed these concerns. Their campaign and its list of candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections reflect the change in a much more sure-footed way.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal’s leader Tejashwi Yadav, in all his recent speeches, has spoken about how the party is no more a Muslim-Yadav party but has evolved into a party of “A to Z”, a metaphor to communicate how the party is willing to represent all caste groups.
At a recent rally in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, Tejashwi declared, “Some people say RJD is a Muslim-Yadav party. RJD is not a Muslim-Yadav party alone. Its base is much bigger and it belongs to people from A to Z. We have to tell them that our party RJD is not only a MY [Muslim-Yadav] party but also a BAAP party.”
BAAP stands for ‘Bahujan’ (Dalit, OBC, and EBC groups), ‘agada’ (forward castes), ‘aadhi abaadi’ (women) and the ‘poor’.
The MY-BAAP strategy has taken flight in Bihar, with a great number of observers excitedly discussing the changes within the RJD, analysing both its pros and cons. While RJD’s new philosophy still has to find its roots in Bihar, since the party is known to exclusively cater to the Muslim-Yadav base, Tejashwi appears to be on steroids to convince people of Bihar that RJD is not the same anymore and is earnest about implementing its new vision.
To his credit, the RJD’s initial list contains an unprecedented representation of OBC and EBC groups, a few ‘upper’ caste groups, and as many as five women, apart from Yadavs and Muslims.
“We are people who unite, not people who break. BJP wants to divide people,” Yadav said at his rally in Muzaffarpur.
Nishad representation, women on the list
Patna-based senior journalist Ramakant Chandan agrees that the RJD, along with the Congress and Left parties as its allies are making significant effort to represent those communities which felt left out in the first wave of Mandal politics.
“In Nawada and Aurangabad, the RJD-led alliance has declared Kushwaha (EBC group) candidates, in Muzaffarpur a Nishad (boatmen community) candidate, and in Bhagalpur and Vaishali Bhumihar (upper caste) candidates,” he said.
It has also taken the Vikashsheel Insaan Party led by Nishad leader Mukesh Kumar Sahni, formerly with the BJP-led NDA, on board and has given it three seats. “That way, Lalu Prasad can project that he has given the maximum tickets to Nishads, who are very influential in districts like Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, and other parts of northern Bihar,” Chandan said.
Similarly, one of As in BAAP, aadhi abaadi or women, too, have found a significant representation among RJD contestants. Apart from Lalu Prasad’s daughters Misa Bharti and Rohini Acharya from Patna Sahib and Saran seats, RJD has given election tickets also Beema Bharti (an EBC candidate) from Purnea, Archana Ravidas (who belongs to a Dalit community) from Jamui and Anita Kumari from Mokama.
The MY-BAAP strategy has turned Bihar into a big battleground state, where observers predict a neck-and-neck contest in most constituencies between the INDIA bloc and BJP-led NDA.
मैं ऐसा कोई वादा करने नहीं आयी हूँ कि ” मैं ये करूँगी , वो करूँगी , ऐसा करूँगी , वैसा करूँगी ” मैं वो करूँगी जो सारण की जनता मालिक कहेगी , वैसा ही करूँगी जैसा आप सब कहेंगे .. आपका निर्देश मेरे लिए आपका आदेश होगा और आपके आदेश के पालन के लिए मैं जी – तोड़ कोशिश ( प्रयास) करूँगी 🙏 pic.twitter.com/68CNx3mRmt
— Rohini Acharya (@RohiniAcharya2) April 7, 2024
PDA formula
Similar is the case with SP, where Akhilesh has been distributing tickets based on his much publicised PDA formula, denoting Peechde (backwards), Dalits, and Alpsankhyak (minorities).
According to Sudhir Panwar, political analyst and SP leader, Akhilesh has lately introduced transparency and accountability in selections. “For 2024 elections, Akhilesh Yadav made ticket distribution more transparent than before and sought opinions of important leaders of every constituency before making decisions. The recent decisions to change candidates in a few constituencies were also based on inputs from local leaders. Those who are most popular are likely to get tickets, but also risk losing them if they perform poorly in consolidating PDA groups,” he said.
While this explains why there is so much uncertainty over selections, resulting in multiple changes even after declaration of candidates in a number of constituencies, this is also the first time that SP has nominated candidates from Dalit communities even in unreserved seats like Ayodhya and Meerut.
“The BJP’s ground-level campaign is centred around the TINA (‘there is no alternative’) factor, especially after turncoats like Jayant Chaudhary joined the BJP camp. However, the PDA formula in representing party’s nominees has challenged the notion to a great extent and foregrounded aspects of social justice,” SP leader Sudhir Panwar said.
“Both the Congress and SP candidates have been establishing direct connection with people through a door-to-door campaign on the issues of neglect and discrimination against PDA communities, importance of caste census, while highlighting high unemployment and inflation,” he said.
The SP has announced their candidates in around 45 odd seats in UP, out of a total of 80. Almost nine of them have gone to leaders from Kurmi caste group, which is the second biggest OBC community in India but have remained politically under-represented.
Similarly, the party has also taken care to give a few seats to Nishads like the celebrity singer Kajal Nishad from Gorakhpur and smaller MBC and Dalit groups like Dhangar, Pasi and so on. Even the Congress, which is in alliance with SP, is following the same formula. Both parties have also given a few seats to Brahmins, who comprise around 10% of UP’s population.
“The selections done by SP have PDA at the centre. Among the 46 candidates declared until now, 24 belong to OBC communities, of which non-Yadav backward groups like Nishad, Shakya, Kurmi and other MBC groups figure prominently. Dalits, too, have been given 14 nominations,” said Gorakhpur-based senior journalist Manoj Kumar Singh.
“In Faizabad, Dalit leader Awadhesh Prasad has been given a ticket, while prominent Kurmi leader Beni Prasad Verma’s daughter Shreya Verma has been fielded in Gonda. Similarly, Kurmi leaders like Ram Prasad Chaudhary (Basti), Lalji Verma (Ambedkar Nagar), Shiv Shankar Patel(Banda), S.P. Singh Patel (Pratapgarh), Bhagwat Saran Gangwar (Pilibhit) have been chosen to represent the SP,” he said.
Alliances too
Singh said that the PDA formula is not restricted to merely election tickets but also has dictated its alliances with single-caste parties in UP. For instance, SP is seriously trying to get Mahan Dal led by Keshav Maurya and Babu SIngh Kushwaha’s Jan Adhikar Party on board.
“One may recall how the decision to field a number of Kurmi candidates had benefited the SP in the 2022 assembly elections. Although it lost, SP substantially increased its strength in the assembly. SP has been conducting multiple public meetings since then to popularise its PDA strategy, although it faced some setbacks too with important MBC leaders like Om Prakash Rajbhar and Swami Prasad Maurya leaving the SP fold,” Singh said.
However, amidst such willingness to expand their parties beyond specific caste groups, and bring into fold other communities and groups, and demand a caste census that stitches together with the electoral formula, the Mandal parties, perhaps, are addressing the larger societal churn in the Hindi heartland, even as they have attempted to talk about issues of unemployment, poverty, inflation, and other such issues that may find a resonance in an aspirational India.
Yet, it may take a much longer time than these elections for both the RJD and SP to shed their Muslim-Yadav identity, although they have made a promising start. That such a combination of electoral strategies may be effective in the long-run can also be deduced from the way the Prime Minister Narendra Modi compared the Congress’s welfare manifesto to one of the “Muslim League’s” in pre-independence India. For the BJP, communal polarisation has been and remains a potent weapon at hand to outperform the issues that the Mandal parties have taken up conventionally.
