Congress push for social justice stumps BJP in state

Bengaluru: The election for the state assembly in Karnataka later this year is a game of hardball. The Congress party which is determined to play this game more adroitly has unlocked its cupboard of trump cards. One of them just rolled out recently which has given the BJP shivers in the spine.

Congress has decided to hard sell its social justice merchandise to the Micro OBCs in the state that accounts for 12 per cent of the total voter population in the state. The coastal Yatra of the party entitled 'Karavali yatra' starting on 5 February will give the real picture.

To begin with, the micro OBCs on the coastal part will come into focus- "we are sure as we approach the elections and many more events will be organised and more micro OBCs will be approached by the party with a prudent set of programmes and practicable at that" according to Randeep Surjewala the Karnataka incharge General Secretary of the party.

It is not with an eye on the elections that the Indian National Congress that it had thought about the micro OBC welfare, it had been continuously working with 15 sub-castes in the micro OBC diaspora, silently and decisively for the last 10 years, the time has come for the party to start unleashing its vision for the upliftment and empowerment of the micro OBC spectrum.

The Party will work on the micro OBCs including Gatti (agricultural workers), Kulal (coastal potters), Acharya (Silver and Goldsmiths) Kote Kshatriyas (fort guards and warriors) Madiwalas (washermen), Devadigas (temple percussionists) Bhandari (safe keepers) Ganigas (oil millers) Kottari (ironsmiths) Jogis (religious workers) Yadavas (cowherds) Shettigar, Sherigar, Thiyas (Malalali Billvas -toddy tappers) Kudubi (forest foragers) and a number of other sub-castes.

The Congress' micro OBC push has also given birth to the idea of having a Micro Backward Communities Development Board (MBCDB) with an annual outlay of Rs.250 crores which will mean in a plan period the corpus will swell up to Rs. 1,250 crores in five years. This is as good as it gets say the community leaders.

Sanjiv Moily who belongs to the Devadiga community told Hans India that the micro OBCs were untouched by any party so far and they were left to fend for themselves, which they have done without much success, there was no political patronage and no funding outlay for the development. The micro OBCs had lost their relevance in the melee of the political parties busy in appeasing the minorities and majority communities for their political advancement.

This design of the Congress party has sent the BJP on a tail-spin. Its caste experts are back on the drawing boards and the cadres have begun knocking at the doors of the micro OBC leaders. Its leaders sat up and started taking notes and exclaim "OMG why did we not see it coming?"