Rahul Gandhi considers the Congress ignoring the plight of the Other Backward Class a grave mistake, but a section of his party feels his sudden overtures to the communities under the broad umbrella of “other” could be an even graver one.
“The issues of OBCs are hidden,” Rahul told party workers at the Talkatora stadium on Friday. “I regret that if I had known more about your history and issues, I would have got the caste census done. That is my mistake and not that of the Congress. I am going to correct that mistake,” Rahul had told the assembled Congress leaders and workers.
A day after Rahul’s comment, a veteran Congress leader wondered aloud what the Rae Bareli MP and leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha meant.
“Is he saying he could have overruled the party?” the leader asked. “The caste census will definitely help understand the numbers and the problems. But the solutions that he seems to be offering are unacceptable.”
Rahul Gandhi’s zeroing in on the OBCs follows his victory against the Narendra Modi government over the caste census.
Rahul had come up with the notion of the caste census in the months between the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra and the 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign. After the Congress turned in its best performance in a decade’s time, Rahul has not let go of the caste census plank, be it inside the Parliament or outside.
His latest realisation, however, is fraught with complications.
“He seems to be confused,” said a former Rajya Sabha MP. “The OBCs have been voting for the BJP. The BJP has made an OBC the prime minister. Why will they suddenly shift their votes to the Congress? Somehow, he seems convinced that without the OBC votes, the Congress will not win elections. He must listen to others as well.”
There is logic behind Rahul Gandhi’s thinking. Consolidation of OBC votes has been credited as a factor behind the BJP’s dominance in national politics. Around 41 per cent of India’s population is estimated to be OBC, though there are no official data.
Some Congress leaders agree the caste census will provide a snapshot of the current social structure, an indicator to socio-economic reality.
“Rahul is looking at caste through an economic rationale,” said a Delhi-based Congress leader. “If he believes dialogue with the OBCs with numbers will sway them to vote for the Congress, it is a false hope. What does he mean by OBC? Can he say the Congress, if it comes to power, will have a Dalit or an OBC as Prime Minister? Will he walk the talk?”
Rahul may not have to wait till before the next Lok Sabha polls to walk the talk. The leadership crisis brewing in Karnataka – one of the three states where the Congress is in power – could offer Rahul an opportunity by the end of this year.
Himachal chief minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu and Telangana CM Revanth Reddy are both upper castes. The Karnataka chief minister, Siddaramaiah, belongs to the OBC category.
The battle within the Karnataka Congress is for Siddaramaiah to be replaced by the deputy chief minister, D.K. Shivakumar, a Vokkaliga. A Karnataka commission for backward classes report says 70 per cent of the population, including a section of the Muslims belong to the OBC category.
Rahul Gandhi could not be unaware. “It [Shivakumar replacing Siddaramaiah] will be a disaster,” said a senior Congress source.
The BJP and the OBCs
On the BJP side, the Chhattisgarh and Arunachal Pradesh chief ministers are from the Scheduled Tribes category. Goa CM Pramod Sawant is a Maratha. In Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, Mohan Yadav and Naib Singh Saini, are from the OBC.
In 2023, BJP president J.P. Nadda had accounted for 29 per cent of the 303 BJP MPs, 27 per cent of the party’s 1,358 MLAs across the country and 40 per cent of the 163 legislative council members to be from the OBC community.
The push to expand the BJP’s core voter base – first proposed by Balasaheb Deoras over 50 years ago – was taken up seriously after Modi was declared the prime ministerial nominee in 2013.
Soon after Modi took oath as PM for the first time, the BJP gave a big push to the frontal organisations, with OBC Morchas set up in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which then spread to other states. To expand its social base BJP wooed the non-dominant castes within the OBC and Dalits, especially those sub-castes unhappy with the dominance of one particular bloc over the others.
Can Congress do a BJP?
“In Maharashtra, the OBC vote bank was never a homogenous bloc,” said a Congress leader from Marathwada. “In 2014, what Devendra Fadnavis did was project the Maratha community fighting for OBC classification as an enemy of the other OBC communities. For the first time in Maharashtra, an OBC vote bank emerged.
“This reality, Rahul is not understanding,” the Congress leader said.
An analysis by Lokniti CSDS after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls revealed 37.4 per cent of the OBC voters favoured the BJP; 19.5 per cent favoured the Congress.
In 2024, the INDIA bloc had eaten into a section of the OBC vote bank that the BJP had created in India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh. The BJP, which had swept UP in 2014 and 2019, was reduced to 33 out of the state’s 80 seats; the SP-Congress managed 43.
So, Rahul Gandhi’s idea is backed by logic. Whether he can execute it is another story.