Press Trust Of India
Ahmedabad, Nov 8: With the Congress aggressively wooing the Patel vote bank, Gujarat’s ruling BJP is likely to focus on winning over the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) ahead of next month’s elections in the state, say party leaders.
The party will increase the number of tickets given to OBCS from “about 40” to the “maximum” in a bid to win their vote in the elections next month, party insiders said.
Elections for the 182-member Gujarat Assembly will be held over two phases on December 9 and 14. “The BJP will be giving maximum tickets to the OBCs in the coming elections. The focus is on winning over the OBC communities in the state,” a party leader said.
The Patel community, which was a staunch supporter of the BJP, is up in arms against the state government over its quota demand. OBCs have been given 27 per cent reservation in Gujarat. The BJP has rejected the demand that Patels be included in the OBC list and has tried to pacify the community by offering reservation for the economically backward among the upper castes.
The population of the community in the state is around 13 per cent. OBCs, under which 146 castes are included, count for nearly 35 per cent of the population. The main demand of the Hardik Patel-led Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) has been inclusion of his caste in the OBC list.
BJP spokesperson Jagdish Bhavsar said they will take all the communities along in the state polls. “We take all the castes along with us. This is part of our social engineering. The BJP has got votes of all the castes in Gujarat and that is the reason we have won five terms in the state,” he said.
