BJP with Koeri card throws down gauntlet to Nitish Kumar

By Manish Anand

New Delhi, March 23: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has finally thrown the gauntlet against Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar by picking up Samrat Choudhary to lead the party in the state. Choudhary has replaced the Lok Sabha MP Sanjay Jaiswal as the Bihar unit chief of the BJP.

Choudhary hails from Koeri caste within the other backward caste group in Bihar. Bihar chief minister’s principal electoral constituency is known to be Kurmi-Koeri, the two castes which are seen to be siblings in the Bihar’s political caste alignments. By appointing Choudhary as the Bihar chief of the BJP, the central leadership of the party has sent out a clear message that the incumbent chief minister is a foe and the saffron outfit will aim to encroach into his core vote base.

Jaiswal, who hailed from the traders’ community, failed to spread his influence outside Champaran region. Choudhary in contrast comes from Munger district in Bihar which is the stronghold of the ruling Janata Dal (United). He is son of Bihar veteran politician Shakuni Choudhary, who for decades dominated the state politics in the Munger region.

Samrat Choudhary, 54, will thus be expected to steer the BJP to the OBC constituency, which is currently dominated by the JD (U) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). While Nitish Kumar towers over rest in total domination over the Kurmi-Koeri caste group, which together constitute not more than 11 per cent of the total vote base in Bihar, his protégé Upendra Kushwaha, former Union Minister, has also sought to carve out a political space in the state. Kushwaha hails from Koeri caste. Political slogan in Bihar after the exit of Nitish Kumar from the Lalu Prasad camp in late 1990s has been the Luv-Kush (Kurmi-Koeri) unity.

While the BJP essentially has the upper caste vote base, which got a boost with the addition of Rajput voters in a few pockets, the RJD and JD (U) alliance with Congress in the supporting role has a much larger electoral base than the saffron outfit. The BJP’s vote base in Bihar is seen to be Brahmin, Bhumihar, Baniya, and a section of extremely backward castes and scheduled castes.

The BJP with Choudhary as the face will attempt to build a strong base among the non-Yadav OBCs for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Kushwaha’s alignment with the BJP is also on the cards.

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About The Author

Manish Anand

Manish Anand is a senior journalist with more than two decades of hardcore reporting on beats such as Prime Minister’s Office, Parliament, BJP, Congress, Planning Commission, NITI Aayog, and scores of Union Ministries.

His past has been with The New Indian Express, The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle, and The Statesman.

For about 15 years, Manish was also a regular commentator and host for talks on AIR on foreign affairs.

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