BJP candidates list 2022: 60% of 107 candidates are OBC, Dalits

Lucknow Jan 15: The BJP has chalked out an extensive plan to woo OBC, Dalit votes by fielding 44 candidates from OBC and 19 from Scheduled Caste or Dalit community, in its first list of candidates, who will be contesting in the first and second phase in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections to be held next month.

Except for Adityanath and Maurya, all the names are for 105 of the 113 seats which will go to the polls in the first two phases on February 10 and 14, with 44 of them hailing from Other Backward Classes and 19 Scheduled Castes, accounting for 60 per cent of the total.

Former Uttarakhand governor and now BJP vice-president Baby Rani Maurya, a Dalit, has been fielded from Agra (rural).

Of the 43 seats from where general castes members have been fielded by the BJP, sources noted that 18 are Thakurs, 10 Brahmins and eight Vaishya. Among the 19 SC candidates in the BJP's first list, 13 are Jatavs, who make up for more than half of the total Dalit population.

The move is seen as a major push by the party to win the support of a section of the community which has been a traditional base of the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party.

Some of the seats where polling will be held in the first two phases and for which the BJP did not name its candidates on Saturday will go the allies.

Highlighting the BJP's outreach to marginalized communities, Pradhan said the party has fielded a Dalit candidate from a general category seat and will name more of them from unreserved seats in its coming lists for the Uttar Pradesh polls.

The fight for OBC and Dalit votes has intensified in Uttar Pradesh after Maurya, who is a senior leader from the other backward class (OBC) community, recently quit the BJP and the Uttar Pradesh cabinet. Besides him, minister Dharam Singh Saini, five BJP MLAs and a legislator of the Apna Dal (Sonelal), a BJP ally, have taken up the SP's membership, boosting its prospects of OBC support in the polls.

The results of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, which will be declared on March 10 along with those of Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, is being seen as a crucial indicator for the 2024 general elections.