Caste census: Hindutva on its side, BJP embraces Oppn's social justice plank

New Delhi: The BJP-led government's surprise announcement for caste enumeration in the next census has turned the national attention to the cut and thrust of electoral politics as the ruling alliance hopes to blunt a key plank of the opposition, including in poll-bound Bihar where the agenda of backward empowerment remains resonant.

With the demand for caste census, the latest manifestation of pro-OBC politics, having more traction in the Hindi heartland states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, both with formidable regional parties, and the Congress pushing it into the mainstream in states of its influence, BJP leaders hope that the decision will rob their rivals of an issue with disruptive electoral potential.

It is the consolidation of a section of disadvantaged sections of society drawn from the SCs, OBCs and STc around the opposition's agenda that had set the BJP back in last year's Lok Sabha elections in several states, denying it a majority that was considered certain by political pundits before the polls.

A senior BJP leader said the lesson they learnt from the results is the need to make constant efforts to win over the deprived sections which have been voting for the party in good numbers since Prime Minister Narendra's advent on the national scene but are not its committed voters.

"That it is a BJP government which undertook the first nationwide caste census in independent India will always go in our favour at a time of political assertion by numerous smaller backward castes," he said, noting that the census findings will empower primarily the non-dominant backward castes.

With the government yet to announce the next census, which was last held in 2011, the road to caste census and its implications remains far from clear but what is certain is that the BJP and its allies will no longer be defensive on the issue.

If the Congress under Gandhi will draw energy and vindication from the government's decision, it also underlines the BJP's political suppleness.

While the Congress pivoted to an agenda traditionally taken up by various regional off-shoots of erstwhile Janata Dal and linking it to the uplift of the backward classes, the BJP realised its wider political implications and decided to own a cause that might not have been its original idea.

The BJP had similarly adopted popular schemes powered by freebies, which were first offered by opposition parties in states like Karnataka and Delhi, after initially slamming them as ''revdi' as it realised their electoral appeal.

The BJP rode on welfare schemes built on cash assistance to notch up big successes in states like Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, and outmatched the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi on populist promises.

BJP leaders noted that caste census is also a key plank of the Congress-SP alliance in Uttar Pradesh, a state with some similarity to Bihar in terms of the influence of OBC voters. And it is in UP where the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance were handed over their biggest shock in the Lok Sabha polls by the rival I.N.D.I.A. bloc.

While the BJP-JD(U) alliance, now joined by Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), has traditionally enjoyed a solid advantage over the rival RJD-Congress-Left combine in Bihar, the perceived decline of its biggest OBC satrap and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been a concern in its camp.

With Kumar being the first chief minister to have carried out a caste survey, the central government's decision will be a boost to his fortunes and may rally his traditional support base of numerous smaller backward castes.

Not a vocal supporter of caste census, the BJP had been accusing the Congress of dividing society along caste lines but never opposed the demand as it studied the issue's popular appeal.

As an ally of Nitish Kumar, it had gone with his decision for a caste survey in Bihar.

BJP's rivals have often turned to politics of social justice around the empowerment of non-general castes, whose share in political and especially economic power remains proportionally less than their numbers, to counter its overarching plank of Hindutva.

With the Modi government greenlighting the caste census, the BJP hopes to disarm them.