BJP to rethink on its strategy in Bihar; might play OBC card

NEW DELHI: BJP is veering around to playing the OBC card, including highlighting the backward caste credentials of PM Narendra Modi, along with its development and good governance plank to counter the challenge posed by the JD(U)-RJD that is increasingly trying to paint the NDA as anti-reservation and pro-upper caste grouping.

RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat’s remarks on reservations and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad’s repeated attempts to make Bihar elections an OBC-versus-upper-caste contest by referring to the polls as "Mandal Raj-II" has pushed BJP to do a rethink on its strategy of fighting the polls on the development plank.



Bhagwat’s comments on quota— though arguably interpreted wrongly by sections of the media and BJP’s opponents—have given Lalu a stick to beat it with in Bihar.

BJP sources said initially the plan was to make the contest one between development and good governance that Modi’s regimes in both Gujarat and the Centre are associated with and propagate the message that voting for the grand alliance will lead to "Jungle Raj II" on the lines of Lalu’s 15 year rule. Going purely by caste equations the JD (U)-RJD-Congress combine has an upper hand over the BJP-LJP-RLSP-HAM alliance.

"PM is likely to take the lead in countering Lalu’s repeated attacks that BJP and RSS are against reservations," a BJP leader told ET.