Congress may dent BSP, SP votebank
The Congress could make a dent in the Mulayam-Mayawati support base among Muslims following the Centre’s decision to fix a 4.5 per cent share for minorities within the existing 27 per cent Other Backward Classes (OBCs) reservation in jobs.
The Union Cabinet on Thursday took a decision to create a 4.5 per cent sub-quota for backward minorities within the 27 per cent quota for OBCs in jobs and educational institutions.
The decision could not only influence the coming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections but break the winning MY(Muslim-Yadav) and MB (Muslim-Backward) combination.
This would confuse Muslims because of OBCs objection to quota within quota, sources said. The mandal and kamandal issues have helped the BJP and Mandalite parties to rule Uttar Pradesh for more than two decades. This has sharply polarised people on caste lines. But this time, governance and development could become electorally relevant to some extent after people have seen the rule of BSP, SP and the BJP in last 20 years.
The Congress’ victory in the last Lok Sabha elections in UP had surprised these three parties as it not only broke the caste equations but made inroads in the Muslim support base of the backward castes-led parties despite poor organisational network.
The more these parties will oppose reservation to backward caste minorities, the more they will see erosion in their support base.
The BJP diluted its Ayodhya card when it was in power at the Centre while the SP is focusing more on Yadavs. On the other hand, the BSP’s real strength has been the dalit and backwards support.
Muslims had voted for Nitish Kumar against the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led party in the Bihar Assembly polls even as the JD (U) had fought the election in an alliance with the BJP.
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