Nayab Singh Saini’s appointment as new state Chief is being seen as BJP’s calculative move to galvanize non-Jat, especially OBC voters, ahead of the parliamentary polls. Caste equations emerged as a decisive factor to some extent in the state politics playing a key role in the polls as well as making all political factions to come up with ticket distribution taking into account the caste equations.
In wake of its differences with the Jat community which constitutes around 30 percent of the vote bank in Haryana. the BJP has come up with this huge step in a bid to non-Jat voters. It is noteworthy that non-Jat and OBC community constitute a sizable chunk of vote bank as well as population in Haryana forcing all political parties to focus on the votes belonging to non-jat communities. The data revealed that people from SC and BC category in Haryana constitute about 51 percent of the total vote population. Based on the data of Pariwar Pahchan Patra (PPP), out of the total verified 68 lakh families and 2.83 crore people in Haryana, the number of people from BC (A) and BC (B) category families is 4793312 and 3797306 constituting 16.93 percent and 13.41 percent respectively.
Likewise, there are a total of 1368365 families of SC category in Haryana which represent 20.71 percent of the total families. It is pertinent to mention that at the same time, the Jats constitute the maximum number of voters in the state Earlier before the appointment of Nayab Singh Saini , the representative from the OBC community in Haryana kept demanding maximum tickets in the elections, citing their neglect and lack of proper representation in the government. Brahmin, OBC and SC communities have been raising the demand to appoint CM from their communities. Recently, a fresh political development occurred as ahead of the polls the OBC community of the state has been continuously accusing the ruling and other factions of ignoring the people from the OBC community and seeking 25 seats and 3 seats in forthcoming parliamentary and assembly polls respectively.
Even in the Rohtak rally held last month, the people of the community accused the ruling faction of neglecting the people from the community stating that the OBC community is still deprived of their rights and if they do not get their rights then the people of the community will not cast their franchise in support of the ruling parties. In this series, ,taking into consideration the caste faction, the ruling BJP was believed to to come up with tall promises and announcements ahead of the polls for the people of the community in a bid to galvanize the OBC voters and the appointment of Nayab Singh Saini is being considered a part of the same.
In continuation to aforementioned, it is noteworthy that in view of the polls drawing near, the representatives of the community were seeking maximum parliamentary and assembly seats in upcoming polls stating that despite the OBC community having a significant vote bank in Haryana, people of the society are not given tickets. Citing negligence of the community in the recent rally held in Rohtak, the representative of the OBC community sought 3 and 25 seats out of 10 parliamentary and 90 assembly seats respectively in Haryana in forthcoming polls and further putting the ball in the court of political factions, they said that ultimately the political parties will have to fulfill their demands. Thus in view of the sizable chunk of vote share of the OBC community, the ruling and opposite factions are brainstorming every possible strategy to galvanise the voters assessing the political mileage .
Earlier, the ruling BJP had come with a major change in the organizational setup on 27 October, 2023 replacing OP Dhankar, a Jat leader with newly appointed state president Naib Saini.
Political experts are of the opinion that the caste equation emerges as a crucial factor behind this as the party has tried to woo voters from OBC category through appointing Naib Saini who hails from the same community. It is a noticeable fact that the Jat vote bank is more inclined towards Congress, followed by JJP, INLD and BJP. In such a situation, considering the voting trend of Jat voters, the BJP has played the OBC card by appointing Naib Saini as the state president.
