Modi worried about Bihar caste survey results, plays Hindu card

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi revealed his anxiety over the Bihar caste survey results that could give Mandal politics a new lease on life by accusing the Congress of wanting to "divide Hindus at any cost and devastate Bharat".

Modi criticized the "jitni abadi, utna haq" (rights and benefits in accordance to share of population) stance that the Congressman had supported on Monday after the Nitish Kumar administration disclosed the caste census data without specifically mentioning Rahul Gandhi.

"Congress leaders have been chanting 'jitni abadi, utna haq' since yesterday. I pondered the thoughts of Manmohan Singh, a former prime minister.
In the tribal region of Chhattisgarh, Modi remarked, "He used to say that minorities, including Muslims, have the first right to the country's resources."

"However, the Congress now claims that the community's citizens will determine who has priority access to the nation's resources."

If the Congress planned to "decrease and remove" the rights of minorities, Modi questioned.

On behalf of the Congress, Rahul had committed on Monday to demand a nationwide caste census and to provide underprivileged communities a share of rights and benefits equal to their demographic share. Such a stance is likely to give Mandal politics a new boost, which has alarmed Modi and his party.

The BJP employed Hindutva in the 1990s to combat the "Mandal wave" brought on by the V.P. Singh government's decision to provide the OBCs 27% of the available seats, a practice known at the time as "Kamandal politics" after the urn carried by the sadhus protesting in Ayodhya.

Modi appeared to use the same strategy and play the Hindu card at the gathering on Tuesday.

He questioned the audience, "Who has the first right if the Congress wants rights and benefits to be proportional to a community's share of the population?"

Pehla hak kiska hoga?" Abadi kiski zyada hai (Which party should get the first right? Who has the most population?)?" he enquired. The crowd seemed unsure of its response.

The Prime Minister questioned, "So, should the Hindus, who have the largest population, come forward and take all their rights?"

In essence, he repeated his prior claim in Madhya Pradesh that the Congress was being managed by "urban Naxals" by alleging that the party had been "outsourced" to "anti-national" forces.

"Outsourcing ko kar diya gaya hai, Congress. He declared, "The Congress has been outsourced and is being governed by those connected to anti-national forces. Congress ko ab aise log chala rahe... jo desh virodhi takaton se mile hue hain.

Congress is kisi bhi kimat par desh ke Hinduon ko baat kar Bharat ko tabah kar dena chahti hai. Congress garibon ko baatna chahti hai (The Congress intends to destroy India and divide the Hindu population at all costs. The poor are to be divided by the Congress.

Modi urged the gathering to be wary of the plans of the Congress and its supporters and accused the Congress of making a "secret deal" with a foreign nation, which he did not name.

According to him, the "biggest caste are the poor," and all of his welfare programs were designed to create confidence in the underprivileged. "The improvement of the poor will result in the improvement of the nation."

In an effort to rebut the Opposition's call for a nationwide caste census, Modi asserted that economic factors should determine rights and privileges.

"Bharat's poor enjoy priority access to the nation's resources, regardless of whether they belong to the Dalit, the Backward, the Tribal, or the General Category of Poor. The impoverished are the largest caste in my eyes, he declared. The Congress has begun using a new tongue.

The Modi government hastily implemented a 10% quota in government jobs and educational seats for the poor among the general category population, relying on economic hardship rather than the constitutionally required criterion of social and educational backwardness to determine the need for reservation. This was done just before the most recent Lok Sabha elections.

The findings of the Bihar caste survey, which demonstrate that OBCs and EBCs collectively make up 63% of the state's population and thus support an increase in the number of reservations under the "jitni abadi, utna haq" policy, can only increase the desire for a nationwide caste census.

If such a census is conducted, the results in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous and politically significant state in the nation and a significant site of Mandal politics in the past, are likely to be comparable.

The BJP's L.K. Advani-led Ayodhya rathyatra and the destruction of the Babri Masjid had stoked a Hindutva fever, but it had been dampened by the development of Mandal or OBC reservation politics in the 1990s. In front of the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, the BJP is concerned about a rerun.

Southern card

In his second rally of the day, Modi charged the Congress with "conspiring against south Indian states" in Nizamabad, Telangana.

He asserted that the southern states, which had done better at containing population expansion, would suffer as a result of the proposal to link benefits to population share.

He suggested that the Congress was taking this action because the proposed redistricting would result in fewer Lok Sabha seats in the south than in the north (because population will determine the number of seats).

"The Congress should make it clear whether it wants to treat the southern states unfairly or not." Modi enquired.

Additionally, he played the Hindu card by emphasizing that while minority religious sites were not under government authority in Tamil Nadu, Hindu religious sites were.

While minorities' houses of worship are not touched and are not brought under government control, Modi noted that temples in the south are being stolen and taken.

Will all the places of worship used by minorities be taken over by the Congress if it supports rights based on population?

Ally is unique

A BJP ally from Uttar Pradesh named Apna Dal stated on Tuesday that it supports the push for a caste census and called it "a demand of the times," according to PTI.

Anupriya Patel, the party's leader and a junior minister in the Modi administration, was cited as saying, "The Apna Dal supports a caste census and believes that it is a demand of the times."