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Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow
Vinay Katiyar, the new president of the Uttar Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party, is seen as a counter to the recently formed alliance of Mulayam Singh-led Samajwadi Party and Kalyan Singh-led Rashtriya Kranti Dal.
Sworn political foes till recently, the two backward caste leaders, who have twice been chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh, have joined hands to consolidate the 55 per cent votebank of the backward castes.
Katiyar, who also belongs to a dominant backward Kurmi caste, is BJP's attempt to stop the Mulayam-Kalyan combine from hogging the entire backward caste applecart.
The post-Babri Masjid demolition era has seen the BJP persisting with upper caste leaders to head the party. For most of the time, it was either Brahmin Kalraj Misra or Thakur Rajnath Singh at the helm of party affairs.
There was only a brief interval when influential backward Kurmi leader Om Prakash Singh held the position, in addition to the ministership of certain key portfolios.
Backward caste politics, which acquired prominence in the aftermath of the implementation of Mandal Commission recommendations in the late eighties, had given rise to Kalyan Singh, who emerged as BJP's first prominent backward caste leader.
Kalyan's appointment as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh gave Mulayam a tough time.
However, Kalyan's unceremonious ouster from BJP in 1999 was a major setback to the saffron party, which had embarked on a campaign to woe the backward caste votes.
Since both Kalraj Misra and Rajnath Singh were equally responsible for Kalyan's exit, accelerated as a result of his controversial relationship with municipal corporator Kusum Rai, the BJP leadership drew much flak for its 'pro-upper caste leanings'.
The party's poor performance at the February assembly election further demoralised the bigwigs in the 'Sangh Parivar'.
After several closed door sessions, they arrived at the conclusion that the first step towards resuscitating the party was the appointment of a backward caste leader to restart the process of building a backward caste votebank.
BJP sources told rediff.com that the first choice had fallen on Om Prakash Singh. But Singh did not wish to give up his ministership, the sources said.
Vinay Katiyar was then promptly sent the summons because of his kurmi background.
His image as a firebrand torchbearer of Hindutva as result of his active involvement in the Ayodhya movement also tilted the scales in his favour.
"You see Katiyar enjoys a unique status. While he belongs to the backward community, he has wide acceptability among the upper caste Hindus simply because he has a Hindu hardliner face," a veteran Brahmin leader of the BJP told rediff.com.
"He is in a better position than anybody else to meet the combined might of Mulayam and Kalyan," he added.
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