JD(U)-RJD use caste census to neutralise ‘Vote Katwa’ Chirag, Owaisi

Patna: During the 2020 assembly elections, the BJP and the JD-U were part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and contested under one umbrella.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and leaders of his party, however, alleged that the BJP took away the vote bank of the JD-U and tried to hurt the strength of its alliance partner. Nitish Kumar, Lalan Singh and other leaders of the JD-U openly made statements that the saffron party had used the LJP’s Chirag Paswan to act as a ‘Vote Katwa’ (vote cutter) for the JD-U.

Chirag Paswan during the 2020 assembly election, announced to contest on those seats where the JD-U candidates were in the fray. After the seat sharing formula was announced by the NDA, the JD-U was given 115 seats, the BJP 110 seats, HAM 7 seats and VIP 11 seats.

Chirag Paswan had given tickets to the rebel BJP candidates who were denied tickets as those seats went to the JD-U. The rebels contested against the JD-U on the tickets of the Lok Janshakti Party and cut the vote bank of the JD-U. In that election, only one candidate of Chirag Paswan’s party won.

The JD-U leaders, post the assembly election results, alleged that the BJP was hurting their party. As a result of the Chirag factor the JD-U, which had won 69 seats in the 2015 assembly elections, tumbled to 43 seats and ranked third after the RJD and the BJP.

The AIMIM also contested in that election and put up an impressive show. Five of their candidates managed to win and in over 20 seats its candidates turned ‘Vote Katwa’ for the RJD.

Tejashwi Yadav and other leaders of the RJD, during the run-up to the election and after the results, said that Asaduddin Owaisi’s party contested as the B team of the BJP to cut into the Muslim vote bank of the RJD.

Hence, leaders like Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav executed the plan to conduct a caste based census in Bihar to calculate the actual numbers of every caste.

The idea is to make the BJP’s politics of Hindutva irrelevant in Bihar. They have opened their political cards to counter the BJP and it will be interesting to see the new plan of the BJP, if any, for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

–IANS