The party won 88% of the reserved SC seats thanks to booth committees and, of course, Amit Shah
It was in the summer of 2015 that BJP chief Amit Shah, along with his backroom team, got down to the brass tacks of booth management and deft social engineering in Uttar Pradesh.
A BJP leader from the state recalls that the party gave the slogan of ‘265-plus’ in its battle for the 403-member Assembly. The party did not foresee winning more than around 250, the leader said.
The results came as a surprise to several people within the BJP. As the party swept the state, it also won around 88 per cent of the reserved Scheduled Caste (SC) seats. While the BJP bagged 69 of them, its allies — Apna Dal and SBSP — won three each of the 85 reserved seats. The BSP won just one seat, SP three and Congress none. In 2012, the BJP had won just three of these seats, while the SP got 58, BSP 15 and Congress four.
“This means Dalits voted for us this time and the Jatavs have also not aggressively voted to defeat us,” said the BJP’s state vice-president, JPS Rathore.
BSP chief Mayawati’s decision to give tickets to 100 Muslim candidates also helped the BJP, as this cut only into the votes of the SP-Congress alliance. The BJP had sown the seeds of non-Jatav appeasement much earlier, when booth committees were set up. Of the 1.47 lakh polling stations, 1.28 lakh booth committees were set up. Each of the 21-member committees had 20 per cent Dalits and 40 per cent OBCs. Shah directly kept in regular touch with the booth committee chiefs, energising and
motivating them, party sources said.
Sunil Bansal, the young state general secretary who worked with Shah when he was the UP in-charge in 2014, was given the task of organising these booth level committees and interactions with the Dalit and OBC groups. “He used to make decisions and we executed them,” said Rathore. OBC sammelans were held across the state last year in all its six kshetras.
Bansal worked behind the scenes as the BJP tried resolutely to alter its social temperament to reach out to the non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits.
This strategy ran through the campaign unwaveringly till the end, even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP's face in the elections, reached out to the poor in his rallies. Sensing his connect with the people, BJP increased the number of his rallies.
Shah chose Keshav Prasad Maurya, an OBC, as state president. Though he belonged to the backward Maurya community, he was not seen as someone who would turn away the upper castes, the BJP’s traditional vote base.
The party then came out with its vision document, called ‘Gareeb Kalyan Sankalp Patra’, underlining its objective of reaching out to the underprivileged, poor, OBCs and Dalits. Around 35 per cent of its candidates were OBCs, while of the reserved SC seats, the party gave tickets to over 20 Passis and around a dozen Jatavs, besides others.
While the BJP stuck to its goal without wavering, the confusion in the opposition camps of the SP and Congress further helped the party. Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav was dealing with a family feud, while the Congress dithered on its chief ministerial candidate and finally allied with the SP.
Shah had impressed upon his team that it should work towards winning the party’s weak seats with as much zeal as for the winnable ones.
REAPING BENEFITS
The BJP had sown the seeds of non-Jatav appeasement when booth committees were set up. Each of the 21-member committees had 20 per cent Dalits and 40% OBCs. Amit Shah directly kept in regular touch with the booth committee chiefs, energising and motivating them, party sources said.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "BJP")
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}