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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  UP Election Results 2017: Did BJP’s OBC card in Keshav Prasad Maurya hit the nail?
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UP Election Results 2017: Did BJP’s OBC card in Keshav Prasad Maurya hit the nail?

By projecting Keshav Prasad Maurya as the key OBC face in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP seems to have scored in the Uttar Pradesh assembly election

The BJP highlighted the fact that Keshav Prasad Maurya, just as Narendra Modi, sold tea and newspapers before joining politics and became the OBC face of the party in UP.Premium
The BJP highlighted the fact that Keshav Prasad Maurya, just as Narendra Modi, sold tea and newspapers before joining politics and became the OBC face of the party in UP.

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) strategy to mobilise the Other Backward Class (OBC) and Most Backward Class (MBC) communities for the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly election led to the elevation of Keshav Prasad Maurya as the party’s state president in April 2016.

Sharing a similar trajectory with Prime Minister Narendra Modi—the party highlighted the fact that he also sold tea and newspapers before joining politics—Maurya became the OBC face of the party in UP.

Looking at early trends, fielding Maurya as the state party head seems to have worked out for the BJP.

Modi, who has been spearheading BJP’s campaign in UP, also belongs to the OBC community and BJP swept UP under his leadership in the 2014 general election. An MP from Phulpur, Allahabad, Maurya’s political career also took off in 2014 itself, after facing two consecutive defeats in the 2002 and 2007 assembly election in UP.

Track Assembly Election Results 2017 here

While the BJP’s main challengers in the election—Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)—enjoy the loyal support of Yadav OBCs and Muslims and Dalits, respectively, BJP tried to increase its outreach among non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits, both of whom drifted towards the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

Maurya’s efforts to woo the OBC community were evident when BSP’s former national general secretary and leader of opposition in the state assembly Swami Prasad Maurya joined the BJP in August 2016. The leader, a popular backward caste face of the BSP, joined BJP in the presence of BJP president Amit Shah and Keshav Prasad Maurya.

However, only the final results on Saturday will be able to give a verdict on whether or not Maurya’ s caste arithmetic worked for the BJP in UP.

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Published: 11 Mar 2017, 10:33 AM IST
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