The Bihar caste census data shows that backward castes and marginalised groups will be key players in India’s Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) elections. The implications will force all political parties to tweak their national election strategies.
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00:00If there's one issue that's really setting the narrative for the Lok Sabha elections
00:06next year, it is the issue of a caste census. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar made a smart
00:12political move this week by making public a caste survey done by the Bihar government
00:17over the last few months. And that has now really set the tone in a sense for what the
00:23opposition's attack on the BJP government is going to be like. The opposition for months
00:28now and for a long time in fact led by the RJD and the JDU and now supported by the Congress
00:34have been demanding a national caste census saying that you need that in order to create
00:38policies to ensure justice to the weakest groups. Now despite the fact that the BJP
00:43has actually done well amongst other backward caste groups or OBCs as far as general elections
00:48are concerned in recent years, they are reluctant to have a national caste census because they
00:53are worried it will open up a Pandora's box and lead to all kinds of new demands for quotas
00:58and reservations and perhaps upset their core upper caste vote base as well. So it will
01:03be interesting to see how the BJP counters this narrative because it seems then that
01:08the twin planks of Hindutva and hyper-nationalism alone may not be enough to see the BJP through
01:15in 2024. They probably do have another card up their sleeve. We'll have to see what that
01:21will be.