As Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh gears up for polls, due by the end of this year, the race to secure the support of the Scheduled Castes (SC) — a formidable block of voters in a State where is politics dominated by Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) — has intensified.
The Congress’ national president Mallikarjun Kharge on August 14 sounded the poll bugle from Janjgir-Champa, an area where SCs form a major vote bank, sending ripples across the Bilaspur region, which forms a block of 24 Assembly seats in the 90-member Assembly, and of the ten seats reserved for SCs, four fall in this area.
It is estimated that while they form just over 12% of the total electorate in the State, the SC population in this region is around 18%. Moreover, the Satnami community, which forms the biggest block within the SC umbrella, is mostly concentrated in this area, and can influence elections well beyond the reserved seats.
Despite the tide turning decisively in favour of the Congress in the previous election, the BJP and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had managed to win one each of the four reserved seats in the Janjgir-Champa belt, and largely owing to their show in the region, the BSP and the Janta Congress Chhattisgarh Jogi or JCCJ party (founded by the late Ajit Jogi and now being led by his son Amit) had polled over 4% and 7% of the votes, respectively. Meanwhile, the State BJP’s SC wing has also decided to hold a conference of community heads of various sub-castes of this society in the State to balance its caste equations in the election year.
While the BSP has announced nine of its candidates even before the formal announcement of the 2023 polls, a newer challenger has arrived on the scene, this time in the form of the new party announced by former Union Minister Arvind Netam.
“The Congress won seven out of the ten seats reserved for SCs in 2018 and the challenge for them is to retain those. And while the series of appointments by the main Opposition BJP — be it their State president, leader of Opposition, or the three new national vice-presidents — suggest that SCs are vying for representation there as well, the presence of the BSP or the JCC-J, would pose a challenge to the ruling party,” political commentator and editor of the Daily Chhattisgarh newspaper, Sunil Kumar, said.
Laxman Bharti, State president of the Anusuchit Jaati-Janajaati Adhikari Karmachari Sangathan or SC-ST Officers Employees Association (popularly referred to as the Ajaks), said that at the core of the issues to be factored for the upcoming polls is reservation. Mr. Bharti claims that the Congress had promised 16% reservation for SCs, but it remains at 12%.
He added that while securing interim relief in May from the Supreme Court on the two quota Bills (a stay on which by the High Court in 2022 had put a hold on reservations in appointments in the State), the State government had started providing 58% reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs in recruitment and followed it up with a Cabinet decision to apply the same formula in educational appointments, but this wasn’t being followed in promotions, resulting in issues for all three marginalised groups. Another cause of disgruntlement in the State is that there is no provision for reservations in the State-run Atmanand Schools.
The BJP, meanwhile, also accuses the government of discrimination against the SCs. Besides the issue of quantum of reservation, its SC wing president and former MLA Naveen Markandey said it’s an issue of preserving cultural heritage. “Even the research institute established in the name of Saint Baba Guru Ghasidas (a prominent saint revered by SCs) in the BJP’s rule has been closed by the State government,” Dr. Markandey said, calling Sunday’s government-sponsored ‘Bharose Ka Sammelan’ attended by Mr. Kharge a “flop show”.
