New Delhi: OBC leader Om Prakash Rajbhar’s entry into the BJP’s camp underscores the ruling party’s assiduous efforts to bolster its presence among disadvantaged castes in the Hindi heartland at a time when the Opposition has seized on a host of issues, including OBC census, to corner it in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
With the main opposition party Congress joining several regional parties to push for caste census as part of wider efforts to increase the OBC reservation and project the BJP as inimical to their interests, the ruling party has been making sharp counter-moves. The central government has so far maintained a studied silence on the demand for a census of Other Backward Classes, who are the largest voting bloc and have shown in polling booths an increasing preference for the ruling party under Prime Minister Narendra Modi since 2014.
A host of leaders representing smaller parties and identified mostly with a particular backward or Dalit caste have gravitated, mostly from the Opposition, to the BJP-led NDA in recent months.