OBC narrative fading for Cong, but farm policies likely to help

The rusting board, just off the dusty, teeming Tarighat road in Patan says “Yash Saloon”. There are three chairs inside, fraying at the edges, and there are three people. One has just finished a haircut, two are in the middle of a shave, but don’t mind the interruption. On a waiting bench behind them are four Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers in crisp white shirts, orange gamchas around their necks.

- Dipankar Ghose

The challenge ahead of them is difficult, the heat is beating down, and Patan after all, is the chief minister’s constituency. But just for a second, they seem to have found an opening. Dinesh Sahu is on the first chair, happy with his new trim, but otherwise animated. “For four and a half years, I have only heard Bhupesh Baghel Chhattisgarhiya, Bhupesh Baghel OBC leader. But he is a Kurmi leader, and has done nothing for the Sahus that are the biggest OBC caste,” Sahu says.

As one BJP worker vigorously nods his head, looking to seize the moment, Sahu cuts him off quickly. “Lekin baat yeh bhi hai, ki Congress ne kisaan ko mahatv diya, unka haq diya (But it is also true that the Congress has given the farmer importance, given them their rights.)” It is between these two arguments, seemingly now pitted against each other, that the fate of Chhattisgarh’s agrarian plains, and a crucial assembly election may now rest.

Crucial battleground

With tribal populations to the north in Surguja, to the south in Bastar, and along the borders in some parts, there is a separate and crucial battlefield in the centre of Chhattisgarh; full of lush paddy fields, and some renewed conversations on caste and society. It is a region with 46 seats across six districts where the Baghel-led Congress did exceedingly well in 2018, winning 28 seats of the eventual 68 it won in a 90-member assembly. But of the 15 seats the BJP did win, 12 came from this region, a sign that it is here that the organisation is strongest.