Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind is BJP's presidential candidate

NEW DELHI: Ram Nath Kovind, 71, a Dalit from Uttar Pradesh, is all but certain to be India’s next president. And in picking a lower caste UP leader as its presidential nominee, BJP has played the first major political card for 2019 general elections.

Kovind, a BJP veteran, a Supreme Court lawyer and a two-term Rajya Sabha member, is currently governor of Bihar. BJP-led NDA is close to a majority in presidential polls (the electorate being members of two houses of Parliament and all state assemblies) and with the support of a few regional parties, may easily cross the finishing line (see graphic).

BJP president Amit Shah announced Kovind’s name after a meeting of the party’s parliamentary board which was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior party leaders.

Shah said Modi has spoken to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh and sought their support. Top BJP leaders also spoke to various opposition parties and got in touch with their allies. Kovind is likely to file his papers on June 23.

BJP leaders ET spoke to said Kovind’s selection is a “strong political” message for 2019. Lower castes had voted for BJP in large numbers in UP polls and in other elections, these leaders said, and Kovind as BJP’s pick for president will send across a message to these groups from the political heartland that BJP is “with them”.

In UP polls, a sizeable section of UP Dalits had voted for BJP, denting BSP’s support base and helping BJP win a massive 325-seat majority. But the party also has had to counter a degree of Dalit disaffection born out of controversies surrounding “cow protection groups” and earlier incidents like Dalit student Rohith Vemula’s suicide in Hyderabad Central University.

The PM and Shah have been making considerable efforts, party leaders said, to get the messaging right for Dalits and Kovind’s selection is part of that effort.



UP and Beyond
Kovind will be the first UP Dalit who will be president – KR Narayanan, a Congress pick, was India’s first Dalit president – and with the PM, an other-backward-caste leader, being a member of parliament from UP, a “strong signal” will be sent “across caste groups” in India’s most politically crucial state, leaders quoted above said.

BJP’s national strategy has always had UP front and centre, these leaders said, and pointed out that Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani, neither of whom are from UP, made the state their political headquarters when they took BJP to power.

Similarly, Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, both from Gujarat, have signalled strong UP connections; Shah was general secretary in-charge of UP in 2014 general elections. Kovind will be a powerful addition in this messaging, the BJP leader said.

Kovind, a low-profile BJP leader who’s worked closely with Shah in 2014 national polls, fits the party president’s requirements that the candidate be a dedicated party insider and someone RSS is comfortable with. But, importantly, he has the reputation of being a low-key, uncontroversial politician, with deep constitutional knowledge and legal as well as parliamentary experience.

BJP leaders said they are hoping Kovind being a Dalit (the specific caste he comes from is Koli) will have an impact beyond UP in the rest of the heartland not just in 2019 general polls but also in assembly elections in states with substantial Dalit presence.