New Delhi, 15 January
In an effort to control the damage caused by the exodus of leaders like Swami Prasad Maurya and others, the BJP has given majority representation to OBCs in its first list of candidates for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.
Of the 107 candidates announced on Saturday, 44 come from OBC communities.
Several OBC leaders including Maurya, Dara Singh Chouhan, Dharam Singh Saini and others have resigned from the BJP in the past few days.
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A saffron party leader said the damage caused by the exit of Swami Prasad Maurya and other OBC leaders is yet to be ascertained, but the list shows that the party has kept backward communities in good faith by giving almost half the tickets to OBCs. Tried. candidates in the first list
“The election results will show the real impact of the recent exodus under Maurya’s leadership but the leadership realized the importance of the OBC communities. To win their support, the bulk of the tickets in the first list went to them,” he said.
OBCs play an important and decisive role in the politics of Uttar Pradesh and constitute more than 50 percent of the total electorate of the state. While non-Yadav OBCs constitute about 35 percent of the total electorate of the state.
The BJP is set to win the election for the second time in a row with the support of non-Yadav OBC communities, who supported them in the 2017 assembly elections and the last two Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019.
A BJP leader claims that by giving majority to OBC candidates in the first list, the party has tried to send a positive message to the backward communities.
“Political rivals mislead communities by saying that BJP uses only OBC votes to come to power and then ignores them. By giving 44 out of 107 tickets to OBCs, the party has shown that it is with them. Earlier, a strong message was sent to the communities when 27 backward class ministers were inducted in the Union Cabinet in July last year.
The state assembly elections will be held in seven phases in February-March from February 10. The counting of votes will take place on March 10.
–IANS