Gamble or gambit?

The BJP-led Mahayuti is cobbling up a non-Maratha rainbow caste combination, particularly of OBCs, in poll-bound Maharashtra. SHREYAS UBGADE explains the rationale for this strategy

- ARCHIS MOHAN & PTI

Just a month after it suffered reverses in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led alliance, Mahayuti, made a comeback of sorts. In the Legislative Council polls for 11 seats, Mahayuti won 9. While the cross-voting by half-a-dozen Congress MLAs grabbed the headlines, what flew under the radar was the caste matrix of the winning candidates, especially of those fielded by the BJP. Four of its five winners were non-Maratha. One of them was Pankaja Munde, daughter of late Gopinath Munde, arguably the tallest Other Backward Classes (OBC) leader in the state.

A couple of months later on October 9, a day after the BJP retained power in Haryana, led by OBC Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, the National Commission for Backward Classes recommended the inclusion of 19 castes and sub-castes from Maharashtra in the central list of OBCs. The move was seen as fulfilling the long-pending demand of those communities.

On October 10, the Maharashtra Cabinet approved a proposal to request the Centre to raise the income limit to qualify for "non-creamy layer" to ₹15 lakh per year from the current ₹8 lakh, a step seen as a symbolic gesture to the OBC communities at broadening quota benefits. Ahead of the elections in Haryana, Saini had increased the income limit from ₹6 lakh to ₹8 lakh.