UP parties look to caste their net wide before next year's polls

New Delhi: As Uttar Pradesh moves closer to the 2027 assembly elections, caste has re-emerged as the primary language of politics, shaping strategies, narratives and electoral calculations across parties in what is widely seen as a semifinal ahead of the 2029 Lok Sabha battle.

The political temperature has risen with the row over the film 'Ghooskhor Pandit' and a recent UGC notification on equity regulations, framed following court directions. Together, cultural expression and administrative orders have turned into flashpoints, accelerating caste consolidation and sharpening identity-based mobilisation across the state.

The film controversy was amplified after BSP supremo Mayawati framed it as a constitutional issue. "Such insults to any community are an insult to the Constitution and to social harmony," she said.


These developments have fed a growing sense of upper caste consolidation. The perception of shrinking opportunities and institutional access triggered meetings, statements and online mobilisation, reinforcing a sense of shared political identity and collective assertion among socially influential groups.

Well before these flashpoints, signs of churn were visible within BJP. Several informal meetings of MLAs grouped along caste lines were held over recent months, beginning with Thakur legislators and followed by meetings of Lodh, Kurmi and Brahmin MLAs. The closed-door meeting of Brahmin legislators, in particular, created ripples within the party.

Since 2014, BJP has consciously worked to blunt the Mandal-versus-Kamandal binary in Uttar Pradesh by subsuming caste identities within a broader Hindutva framework. The projection of Yogi Adityanath as a Hindutva face rather than a caste leader, alongside deputies identified with specific caste segments, reflects this calibrated social engineering rather than a reactive shift.

Memories of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls loom large. In western Uttar Pradesh, Jaat-versus-Thakur faultlines and an opposition-driven narrative that BJP would tamper with the Constitution and reservations pushed sections of OBC voters away. The appointment of an OBC Kurmi leader as state BJP president was widely read as a corrective aimed at re-consolidating backward caste support.

The Samajwadi Party, meanwhile, is leaning into overt caste politics through its PDA - Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak- framework. As Uttar Pradesh heads into a decisive election phase, caste, despite repeated attempts to sideline it, appears set to once again dominate the state's political grammar.