With an eye on the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in 2024, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) — both major contenders from Uttar Pradesh — are planning ways to woo Other Backward Classes (OBCs) who make up a significant 40% to 45% of the State’s electorate.
The SP is holding rallies, training sessions and conferences, all with the issue of a caste-based Census as their centrepiece, aimed at mobilising all OBCs under its umbrella. The BJP, on the other hand, is planning conferences and rallies which aim to establish separate identities for each caste group, effectively preventing them from consolidating under the common backward class grouping as the SP is drawing them towards.
