New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi’s pro-OBC pitch got a leg up for the Congress in Madhya Pradesh where the OBC Mahasabha pledged support to the grand old party on Friday. Polling for the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly will be held on November 17. Results will be out on December 3. The Congress has fielded around 70 OBC candidates apart from the same number of candidates on the seats reserved for the SC and ST categories.
“This is a big political development ahead of the elections. The OBC Mahasabha has been spearheading the pro-community movement for the past decade. Today they met Rahul Gandhi and told him that they will support the Congress OBC candidates as well the SC and ST nominees in the state,” Congress Rajya Sabha member Vivek Tankha told ETV Bharat.
According to the Congress veteran, the OBC population in MP is over 50 per cent and the OBC Mahasabha had been impressed with Rahul’s pro-OBC pitch, including a nationwide caste census if the INDIA alliance comes to power in the 2024 national elections. “The OBC Mahasabha asked Rahul Gandhi to develop Madhya Pradesh as an OBC model state, which can be followed by the other states later on,” said Tankha. According to party strategists, the support from the OBC Mahasabha can easily swing around 25 additional seats in favour of the Congress, which is targeting to win 150 seats.
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“As it is the Congress has an advantage in the state, but if the support of the OBC Mahasabha works on the ground, we can easily bag an additional 25 seats to meet Rahul Gandhi’s target of 150 seats. Otherwise, the party may be somewhere around 120-125 seats. The support from the OBC Mahasabha will come as a big psychological push just a few days ahead of the Assembly polls,” said a senior AICC functionary monitoring the election war room in MP.
Of late, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have been flagging the party’s assurance on a caste census while campaigning in Madhya Pradesh. The Congress top leadership has been targeting PM Modi’s comments that the grand old party was attacking him because of his OBC origin, saying the premier was silent when it came to conducting a caste census, which was needed for effective social welfare policies.
“When Rahul Gandhi interacted with the OBC Mahasabha members he started telling them about his ideas for community welfare, including the statistics that he often highlights. Rahul told the community leaders that out of the 90 Secretaries in the Central government, only three were from the OBC community. Also, the situation was the same in Madhya Pradesh,” said Tankha.
The former Congress chief, who campaigned in Jabalpur, also highlighted the issue. “The PM used to say till recently that he was an OBC and that only caste was poor, but since I started demanding a caste census, he forgot that. The PM is not telling the youth the number of OBC, SC and STs in the country,” Rahul said. After having an interaction with the OBC groups, he also met a Jain delegation to discuss their issues.
