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Many of the ministers who joined the Narendra Modi Cabinet on Tuesday were sworn in with an eye on the BJP’s prospects in the poll-bound States of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Gujarat.
From UP, politically the most critical State, where the BJP won 71 Lok Sabha seats in the 2014 general elections, the choice of entrants is tailored to expand and consolidate the party’s caste base.
Broad-based outreach The induction of Chandauli MP Mahendranath Pandey is a message to Brahmins, traditionally BJP supporters, who had drifted to other parties over the last decade.
In Anupriya Patel of the Apna Dal, the BJP has promoted a young leader from the backward Kurmi community in eastern UP. This is seen as a move to wean away non-Yadav OBCs from the Samajwadi Party. The BJP is trying to build on the alliance of hard Hindutva with the OBC leadership that it nurtured in the heyday of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement, in the 1990s.
With Modi, himself from an OBC community, heading the campaign, the BJP is projecting younger OBC leaders such as Patel and Swami Prasad Maurya, who was recently made president of the UP unit of the party.
The induction of Shahjahanpur MP Krishna Raj reflects the BJP’s aspiration to target non-Jatav Scheduled Castes, which has traditionally voted for the BSP.
Similarly, from Gujarat, where the BJP’s strong support among the dominant Patels has been threatened by the demand for OBC status for the community by young leader Hardik Patel, the BJP has inducted two powerful leaders from the community: Purushottam Rupala, a Leuva Patel from Saurashtra and Mansukhbhai Mandavia, a Kadva Patel. These communities form 12-14 per cent of the Gujarat’s electorate and have traditionally voted for the BJP. From Uttarakhand, the claims of upper caste MPs such as Bhagat Singh Koshiyari and Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank were ignored to promote young MP Ajay Tamta, who belongs to the Dalit community.
The induction of SS Ahluwalia may be seen as a message to poll-bound Punjab as much as strengthening the BJP’s coordination skills with Opposition parties.
With the Government expected to give a big push to the Constitutional amendment for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament, Ahluwalia can be a crucial asset in reaching out to opposition parties with his vast experience as a parliamentarian.
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