BJP joins race for Brahmin votes with 'prabuddha varg sammelans' in UP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh is joining the race for the votes of 'Prabuddha Varg' (read Brahmins) in the state ahead of the Assembly elections.

The Bahujan Samaj party and Samajwadi Party are already racing ahead with 'Prabuddha Varg' Sammelans and both parties have promised to install statues of Lord Parshuram, the Brahmin sage.

The BJP's 'Prabuddh Varg Sammelans' will be organised between September 5 and September 20 across all districts.


Party state general secretary and in-charge of the conventions, Subrat Pathak said the sammelan should not be read as the one driven by caste factor only.

"It is mainly meant to connect with the intellectual classes who may happen to be from any caste," he explained.

Pathak, who is a party MP from Kannauj, accused the opposition of keeping caste at the core of their conventions.

"That is not the case with the BJP. Our aim is to reach out to the intellectual classes and inform them about the ideology and policies of the party," he said.

Prominent leaders who will address these sammelans include Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath (Varanasi), Radha Mohan Singh (Prayagraj), Swatantra Dev Singh (Ayodhya), Sunil Bansal (Lucknow) and Keshav Prasad Maurya (Kanpur).

These leaders, in their speeches, will underline the fact that the BJP takes care of all castes irrespective of their numbers.

They will also attempt to dilute the opposition campaign that the ruling party and the government is pursuing an anti-Brahmin agenda.

The BSP, in particular, has been blaming the BJP for targetting innocent Brahmins.

The BJP, on the other hand, has been strengthening its outreach to OBCs and playing the backward caste with a vengeance.

It is noteworthy that in 2013 the Allahabad high court while hearing a PIL filed by one Motilal Yadav, had banned events by political parties in the state on the basis of caste. Hence, these conventions are being called Prabuddha Varg Sammelans, instead of Brahmin Sammelans.

Brahmins constitute 13 per cent of the population and are considered as major opinion makers in Uttar Pradesh.