The Brahmin leadership of the BJP is out to cut to size the party's powerful OBC lobby. First, Uma Bharati was completely marginalised in the HRD ministry ... Then Gangacharan Rajput ... was served a notice for highlighting the fertilizer shortage and threatened with another notice for protesting against the haste in pushing the women's bill. Now the long-standing move to remove Kalyan Singh as Chief Minister of UP has been revived. ...

Singh's rivals in UP are crowing over their victory, oblivious that they are cutting the very branch on which they are perched. The BJP's victories in the parliamentary poll in north India were substantially due to the support it received from non-Yadav OBC voters such as Lodhs, Kurmis and Nishads ... Some 60 to 70 BJP MPs are OBCs. In the recent MP assembly poll, the OBC-dominated Bundelkhand region gave the BJP 18 out of the 24 assembly seats in contrast to the party's indifferent performance in the rest of the state. (Source: The Indian Express, 21.12.1998)