New Delhi: The BJP’s ticket-distribution pattern for the coming Bihar Assembly elections has shown that the saffron party has kept in mind caste arithmetic, which plays a dominant role in this state.
Taking into account the caste combinations and its own core vote bank, the BJP has fielded 30 Rajputs, 18 Bhumihars, 14 Brahmins and 19 Baniyas. The three castes constitute the majority vote bank of the BJP, which is relying on “NaMo magic” continuing in this state where it won 22 of the 40 parliamentary constituencies last year.
The party has so far announced names of 153 candidates. Despite its claim that development is the main issue in this election, it seems the BJP had to fine-tune its caste arithmetic before announcing its candidates.
The BJP, which is contesting 160 of the total 243 Assembly constituencies, has also fielded 22 candidates belonging to the powerful Yadav caste, which is considered the backbone of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD. It has also given tickets to 21 SC candidates and two Muslim candidates.
While the upper caste makes up less than 15 per cent of the total population of the state, OBCs constitute more than half of the total population, including Yadavs who are around 15 per cent. Dalits are around 16 per cent and Muslim, too, are around 16 per cent.
The BJP has also kept in mind the EBCs, part of the OBC community, by nominating 14 candidates from this section. BJP poll managers did a lot of caste-related calculations before finalising the seats.
