There is something about the term vote bank that is invidious ... Though almost all political parties across the country have certain dedicated followers, the term was coined in the late 1970s by the erstwhile Jan Sangh in reference to the Muslims who till then had, by and large, been voting for the Congress.

Later, the term came to include the dalits also. More so, after the rise of Bahujan Samaj Party as a force to reckon with in north and central India and with the Mandalisation of the Indian polity after 1989.

Interestingly, the term has never been used for parties relying either on workers and dedicated cadre or those banking on the upper castes ... Today, Indian politics is all about vote banks (if one must subscribe to that t. .m) ...

Take for instance, Karnataka where for a number of elections the Congress has had the support of two peasant castes - Lingayats and Vokkaligas. The Lingayats constitute more than one-third of the Kannada population and have never been known to have saffron predilection.

Yet, they have not been dubbed as a vote bank ... Similarly, in Andhra Pradesh ... by the mid-1940s, the Reddys gained control of the Congress, There are eight Lok Sabha constituencies in Rayalseema ... Hence, if the Reddys actually vote en bloc, it can mean a distinct advantage for the Congress.

Yet neither the Kammas of the Andhra region nor the Reddys have had the epithet of "vote bank" prefixed to their name ... The Congress has had a steady vote bank. Of Brahmins inmost parts this side of the Vindhayas.

In almost all the elections, they have voted for the Congress whom they take to be an upper caste party. Similarly, the trading or the Baniya community has aligned with the BJP and its earlier avtars for the better part of the past 50 years.

In fact, in states like Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has been able to make inroads ... because the Marwaris, the Kalwars, the Ahirs have consistently supported it ... Talking of the Muslim "vote bank", there has been a significant pattern emerging over last two decades or so. Though after Independence, the community threw in its lot with the Congress, over the years, particularly after 1989, there has been a shift. And often the members of the community have voted for the party most likely to stop the Hindutva juggernaut ...

Of late, the term has come to be used for the Yadavs and other backward castes supporting the Samajwadi party in UP and the RJD in Bihar. They are nursing their traditional "vote bank" we are told.

A "vote bank" can only be of the minorities or the dalits, the backward classes but never of those who belong to the middle or the upper castes in the caste hierarchy or even those who belong to a class whose members have consistently voted for a particular political party. That is the silent underlying message, seldom discerned by the political pundits. (Source: The Statesman, 27 August, 1999)