The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants its cadre in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh to ensure that the party’s hold over the substantial Dalit vote-bank– estimated to be about 21% of the state’s population — is strengthened and there is no recurrence of the 2024 narrative that claimed it was seeking an absolute majority to change the Constitution and alter caste-based quotas, said people aware of the details.
“The BJP has gained support from the scheduled caste communities post-2014, largely owing to the social welfare schemes of the government. For the BSP the vote share has been on the decline: from 19.8% in 2014 it was 19.3% in 2019 and 9.5% in 2024. Because the party largely stood for identity politics,” said a senior BJP leader in the state who asked not to be named, the Jatavs, however, continued to support the BSP,. Because of the opposition’s narrative, “The BJP’s vote share in the Lok Sabha polls (in UP) has been increasing: in 2014 it was 42.6%; in 2019 it was 49%; and then in 2024 it came down to 41% but that was.
The narrative is seen as the main cause of the party’s overall tally falling in both Uttar Pradesh and nationally in the last Lok Sabha polls. The BJP’s social engineering formula of giving representation to various castes already includes the Dalits, but the party is now aggressively seeking to cement its ties with non-Jatav Dalits such as the Pasis, Khatiks, Dhobis, and Valmikis, among others. The Jatav/Chamar section of Dalits is widely seen as a preserve of the Bahujan Samaj Party. In the coming weeks, the party plans to organise meetings with groups from various communities and seek feedback on issues and concerns. They benefited from targeted schemes such as housing and cooking gas subsidies, and they were given political representation which made them vote for the BJP. The SP has indicated that it will give more seats to Dalits and has set up the Ambedkar Vahini, a group for better connect with the community. The Bhim Army’s Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) has decided to contest the polls alone hoping to consolidate its position as an alternative to the BSP.
In the state elections too we see a similar pattern,” the leader said.
