New Delhi: With just a week left for voting in the first phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is battling hard to douse the fire of resentment from the unlikeliest of quarters – the Rajput community – who have traditionally been its loyal support base.
A sudden wave of protest meetings and panchayats held in west Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar and Meerut by leaders of the dominant, landed community, has forced the BJP to address their question and try to gloss over the divisions in its electoral caste rainbow by ramping up the Hindutva card and sentiments of nationalism.
The region has over the past three to four years emerged as a playground of caste tension and battle for supremacy between two dominant communities—the “upper caste” Rajputs and the OBC Gurjars—especially over the claim to the legacy of ninth century Pratihara ruler Mihir Bhoj. While Gurjars claim Mihir Bhoj was a Gurjar ruler, Rajput groups say he was one of them and accused the Gurjars, a backward caste community in UP, of trying to appropriate their caste icon.
This feud resulted in a war of words and competing rallies and marches by both sides, giving rise to a complicated situation for the BJP, which wants to secure the votes of both communities as part of its consolidation of Hindus. The dispute first took centre stage months ahead of the 2022 UP Assembly election when chief minister Yogi Adityanath inaugurated a statue of Mihir Bhoj in a college run by the Gurjar community in Dadri, Noida. The Gurjar community was left fuming after the word ‘Gurjar’ was removed from the plaque before the inauguration. The plaque had initially read – Gurjar Pratihar Samrat Mihir Bhoj. The Gurjars alleged that the word ‘Gurjar’ was removed at the behest of the Rajput community and accused the Adityanath government of trying to change the identity of their icon.
The BJP’s ticket distribution in west UP and the outrage by Rajputs in Gujarat over BJP ‘s Union minister Parshottam Rupala’s controversial comments on Kshatriyas entering relationships of “roti-beti” (breaking bread and entering into marital relations) with the British provided the Rajputs the push to launch a fresh agitation for “self-respect” in Uttar Pradesh.
And, on April 7, Rajput groups assembled in huge numbers in Nanauta in Saharanpur under the Kshatriya Swabhimaan Mahakumbh and declared that the community would punish the BJP in the 2024 election. Thakur Puran Singh, founder president of the Kisan Mazdoor Sanghathan, who led the gathering, declared that the Rajput community would vote for the candidates best placed to defeat the BJP across the country.
The Rajputs are irked that the BJP has fielded Pradeep Chaudhary, a Gurjar MP in Kairana, for the second time despite reservations expressed by them over his stand on the Mihir Bhoj controversy. A section of the Rajput community is also unhappy that BJP MP from Ghaziabad V.K. Singh was dropped and replaced by a Bania, Atul Garg, from Saharanpur, as the party’s candidate, while former BJP legislators from the Thakur-Rajput community Suresh Rana and Sangeet Som, both known for their Hindutva antecedents, have been sidelined after they lost their seats in 2022 Assembly polls.
“This fight is for our swabhimaan (self-respect), a fight against those who insulted our mothers and sisters. This election is not about making someone win or lose. This is only about your swabhimaan. Vote for the candidate who is defeating the BJP or else just don’t go out to vote and stay home,” Puran Singh said in Meerut on April 11. He was addressing a “Chintak Baithak” of the entire Kshatriya Samaj in Meerut’s Gram Sisauli Adda, one of the many meetings and panchayats lined up by the dissenting Rajputs in west UP leading up to the voting on April 19 and 26.
Puran Singh accused the BJP and Adityanath of “keeping silent” when Gurjar leaders insulted Mihir Bhoj by inscribing the word “Gurjar” before his name on his statue.
“They claim to be nationalist. We voted for it (BJP) in the name of nationalism but that party has become casteist. It is handing tickets to those MPs who insulted our icons,” Puran Singh said.
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Though Thakurs and Rajputs are not numerically significant across UP, averaging an estimated 4% of the population, in some seats in west UP they can be a decisive force. Moreover, they also compete for dominance in the political and social discourse in parts of west UP due to their status in the caste hierarchy and economic heft. The open dissent by one of the BJP’s most loyal communities has forced it into firefighting just days ahead of voting.
On April 6, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a roadshow in Ghaziabad, where the BJP has dropped its Thakur MP. On the same day, Modi held a rally in Saharanpur. On April 9, while he was in Pilibhit to address a rally, Modi caught the site of the media after he was seen asking Thakur leader Suresh Rana to sit beside him on stage. Modi and Rana engaged in a chat on stage, and the visuals were widely shared, to perhaps, appease the Kshatriya community.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath during a BJP roadshow in Ghaziabad. Photo: X (Twitter)/@narendramodi
On April 10, Adityanath repeated a similar gesture by trying to display bonhomie with another disgruntled Thakur leader Sangeet Som while addressing a rally in Sardhana, which falls in Meerut district but is part of the Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha. Som is an ex-MLA from Sardhana. Adityanath first invited Som to sit beside him and after some exchange of words, asked him to speak from the stage. “Yogi is toiling day and night to make the BJP win and make Modiji the PM for the third time. We will follow whatever Yogiji instructs us,” said Som in a brief but heavily loaded speech.
In their election rallies in West UP, Adityanath and other senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh have been forced to address the Rajput issue.
In Sardhana, Adityanath warned voters against those trying to distract them through caste, in an apparent attack on the Rajput groups. “Those trying to mislead you, you don’t need to be misled by them. They will never come back. These merchants of castes will use you and disappear after trading you. We should not fall for the deception of any such person that shall put our rashtra dharma under threat,” said Adityanath.
The CM, who was himself born into a Kshatriya caste, evoked Rajput icon Maharana Pratap as a nationalist hero to underline the message of “Bharat’s swabhimaan and samman” overriding other caste sentiments, which if fanned, could prove to be a threat to the country’s “rashtra dharma.” “We will eat roti made of grass but will not bow our heads before foreign rulers,” Adityanath said, evoking Maharana Pratap’s sentiments against the Mughals.
“We must set aside personal disputes and think about the nation. Nothing can be above the nation and rashtradharma for us. Sardhana is the land of the brave. And the brave can never display cowardice. They can never adopt a shortcut and are always prepared to sacrifice for rashtra dharma,” said Adityanath.
Speaking in Saharanpur on April 10, Union defence minister Rajnath Singh also a Thakur from east UP, acknowledged the resentment among Rajputs but downplayed its political impact.
“If anyone anywhere has resentment, we will find a solution to that. The SP and the Congress cannot find the solution, only the BJP can,” said Singh.
He tried to link the Rajput anger to caste-based narratives run by the Opposition. “In the 2017 UP Assembly election, the SP and the Congress ran this narrative that OBCs are unhappy with the BJP. In 2019, they said the Brahmins were unhappy. In 2022, they said the Jats are unhappy and now in 2024 they are running this narrative that Rajputs are unhappy. But they are not willing to accept that the entire UP is unhappy with the Congress and the SP,” said Singh.
In his election rallies in Kairana and Saharanpur on April 12, Adityanath again tried to downplay the resentment among Rajputs and said that “casteist politics” would serve as an entry point to invite “riots” in west UP and would be a “bell of danger” for women and traders.
Without referring to Rajputs by name, Adityanath said that the nation’s “self-respect” was above all. “Maharana Pratap fought for rashtriya samman and rashtriya swabhimaan. Even today, the fight is for that. If anyone invokes jati (caste) before you, ask them where they were during the Ram Mandir andolan, when kawad yatras were being stopped and when there were riots in Muzaffarnagar.”
Adityanath made a specific reference to the arrest of Thakur ex-MLA Suresh Rana for his role during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. “Where were they (Rajput groups)? If they were not there during a crisis, at least they should not create a new crisis during this time,” said Adityanath.
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The BJP is also facing trouble from disgruntled Thakur-Rajput leaders. While there is still no clarity on the nomination of controversial Kaiserganj MP Brij Bhushan Singh Sharan, who is accused of sexually harassing female wrestlers, the open display of hostility between the former legislator and Rajput leader from Meerut Sangeet Som and the sitting BJP MP in Muzaffarnagar Sanjeev Balyan, a Jat, has provided more fuel to the resentment of Rajputs. A section of Rajputs believe that in 2022, Balyan played a role in ensuring the defeat of Som. In his interviews during campaigning, Balyan has also made hostile remarks against Som for not campaigning for him. Som has responded in kind.
In Sardhana, Adityanath tried to bring both leaders on the same page and reminded voters of their Hindutva credentials.
“Those people trying to mislead you, they had put Sangeet Som and Sanjeev Balyan in jail and imposed a curfew on the people [during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots]. During elections, we may have a personal dispute with someone but ideology and rashtra dharma are paramount for us. There can be no compromise with that. Where the need arises, we will leave aside everything and choose rashtra dharma and sacrifice ourselves for it.”
Adityanath’s efforts, however, did not give the desired results as even after the public meeting, Som held on to his hostile stance against Balyan. “We are karyakartas of BJP, not of Sanjeev Balyan,” Som told local reporters when asked why he was not campaigning for Balyan.
Was he angry? “Sanjeev Balyan is not of my level that I would be angry with him,” quipped Som, as he kept the mystery alive on where he would direct his supporters to vote.
In 25 out of 26 seats voting in the first three phases for which the BJP has declared candidates, it has fielded four Brahmins, four jats, three Thakur-Rajputs and two Gurjars. The third candidate from the Kshatriya community – UP minister Jaiveer Singh Thakur – who is fighting from Mainpuri, a difficult seat, was declared only after the intensification of the Rajput anger.
Not just in Kairana, Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur, where the BJP has fielded a Gurjar, Jat and Brahmin, the BJP would also face caste complications in Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddha Nagar, where the BSP has fielded Thakur candidates against the saffron party’s Bania and Brahmin nominees.
Mahender Singh Tanwar, national president, Akhil Bhartiya Kshatriya Mahasabha, who in 2021 wrote to Modi requesting him to take cognisance of the “distortion” of the Rajput history over Mihir Bhoj, told The Wire that the dispute had no relation to the electoral politics. “The issue has no connection to either the BJP or the Congress. It is a social and historical issue, not a political one. It can be resolved through dialogue,” said Tanwar.
While remaining critical over the politics and dangers to social harmony caused by the discourse over Mihir Bhoj, Tanwar said the strategy to oppose BJP and find a solution to the Rajput-Gurjar dispute through the election did not sound plausible. “The community will decide that,” he said about the impact the current politics could have over voting in the 2024 election.
From the BJP’s point of view, the Rajput discontent may be the most favourable issue it may have to address, given that the OBCs and Dalits, who make up a large majority of Hindu voters, have been untouched by any large-scale debate over their socio-economic life ahead of voting day. Nevertheless, taken together, the resentment among Rajputs in west UP and Gujarat may possibly serve as an obstacle to the BJP’s aim of Hindu consolidation and target of 400 plus seats.
For now, the eight seats of west UP that will vote on April 19 do not seem to be as easy as they were just a week back.
