Indian Politics & Policy Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2020 | Page 79

The Backwards Turn Right in the Hindi Belt: Trajectories and Implications
vote share of Congress among OBCs
was fairly stabilized within the range of
22–25 percent. As for the BJP, its vote
share among OBCs was slightly higher
than Congress’s, oscillating between
23 percent and 31 percent. In brief, the
BJP’s vote share among OBCs was more
in flux than Congress’s was. Second, except
for a slight dip in 1999, state-level
parties received votes of a large subset, if
not majority, of OBC votes (40–43 percent)
until 2009. Third, the 2014 LS election
appeared to be a watershed moment
as the BJP left all other parties behind
in terms of vote share among OBCs and
continued to maintain its lead over the
other parties in 2019. Fourth, the BJP is
now the single largest recipient of OBC
votes, not only by taking away votes
from state-level parties, but also from
Congress. In other words, the shift in
political preferences among OBCs since
2014 has been unidirectional.
Table 1: Political Preference among OBCs: Hindi Belt
LS Election
Notes:
OBCs voted for
Congress BJP State-Level Parties Others
1996 22 31 40 7 1022
1999 25 27 35 13 3476
2004 22 29 40 9 3870
2009 22 23 43 12 5202
2014 17 42 36 5 3713
2019 15 45 27 13 4533
1. Hindi Belt consists of the following states: Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana, Delhi, UP, Uttrakhand,
Chhattisgarh, MP, and Rajasthan.
2. OBCs include those groups among Hindus who are listed as such in the state list of OBCs.
3. Others are Independents.
Source: NES, respective years.
N
It thus appears that relatively
a large section of OBCs preferred
state-level parties and for quite some
time in the Hindi belt, and that only
recently, have they shifted toward the
BJP in a big way. However, the story of
the BJP’s rising support and falling of
state-level parties out of favor among
OBCs in the Hindi Belt as a whole does
not reveal much. For one thing, many
states in this region are characterized by
bipolar elections, in which the BJP has
long been one of the main contenders
(e.g., MP, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and
Rajasthan). Viewed thus, it would be
interesting to look at the observed shift
in political preferences among OBCs
in the states where there are state-lev-
75