JOIN USBJP plans big OBC outreach to target Rahul Gandhi
The Bharatiya Janata Party is working on a plan to reach out to as many as one crore households of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) across the country to highlight the “insult” made to them by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The party has called for a meeting of all its OBC MPs on Wednesday, where party president J P Nadda and general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh will chalk out a strategy to take on the heated issue.
Party sources said the OBC Morcha of the party had formulated a nine-day programme to highlight the achievements of nine years of the Modi government in preparation for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. But with Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification, the Morcha is now shifting focus on his “insult” to the OBCs.
Through the campaign, which is set to start on April 6 (BJP’s Foundation Day) and end on April 14, the birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar, the party aims to reach out to one crore households in one lakh villages across the country. During the nine-day campaign, on April 11, the birth anniversary of 19th-century anti-caste social reformer Jyotiba Phule, the party also plans to reach out to people from the OBC community with special needs. The OBC Morcha’s national executive held in Gurugram last month decided upon the contours of the campaign.
BJP OBC Morcha chief K Laxman told DH that the campaign’s agenda now is to convey to people that Gandhi disrespected the Modi community.
“Rahul Gandhi, in his statement, has degraded the Modi community and insulted the OBCs. We will tell the people how the Congress has betrayed the OBCs since the regime of Jawaharlal Nehru; the Congress was always against reservations, from Nehru to Rajiv Gandhi,” Laxman said.
Gandhi’s disqualification has led to an intense political battle between the BJP and the Opposition parties, which have come together to condemn the action. In response, the BJP has galvanised its OBC MPs. The BJP has nearly 115 OBC MPs in the Lok Sabha.
The BJP’s strategy to push the message of “insult” to the OBC community is keeping in mind key Assembly elections in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Chhattisgarh by December 2023, as well as the big wrestle in the 2024 Lok Sabha.
On Sunday, the OBC Morcha of the Uttar Pradesh state wing held deliberations with several OBC communities in Noida, where they passed a resolution that if Rahul Gandhi does not apologise, they will not forgive the Congress.