.. Vajpayee appears allergic to ... aggressive OBC politics. He has long been uncomfortable with the "social engineering" approach once advocated by the likes of Govindacharya, and, to an extent, Advani, which tries to co-opt OBC self-assertion into the broader Hindutva framework. That alone explains why Kalyan Singh was singled out, why other OBC leaders and his nominees from the Loktantrik Congress and Janatantrik BSP, were allotted low-grade portfolios in the UP cabinet, and why rumours persist that Singh's 60-odd recent appointments are to be reversed. This too is clearly linked to the caste dynamics of BJP politics in UP, and the stark choices it today poses between the upper castes and the restive OBCs. Vajpayee has virtually taken overall charge of the UP BJP, but attempted no reconciliation or compromise.
... In UP, the stakes are even higher. The BJP organisation is in deep trouble. In the latest elections, the party led in less than 120 Assembly segments, of a total of 425. Its OBC base is rapidly shrinking. Kalyan Singh is a formidable opponent ...
Mr. Singh can create real trouble for the BJP ... This could well precipitate fresh Assembly elections, which the BJP cannot relish. The UP Rajya Sabha elections too are four months away. The BJP needs every seat it can find to beef up its poor presence in that House …
Kalyan Singh has, for the moment, chosen to move rightwards by adopting a hardcore Hindutva line and drumming up the temple issue. But he may only be reminding Vajpayee of his importance in the "Ayodhya factor" and its contribution to the BJP's jump from two Lok Sabha seats to 89. At any rate, he will (not) forever reject the option of joining hands, openly or secretly, with non-BJP leaders, including Mulayam Singh and Laloo Prasad Yadav. In UP, OBCs with substantial Muslim support, could form a formidable, potentially winning, combination ...
It underscores Hindutva's limitations or failure in homogenising a divided community, and the upper caste bias of its ideology. Singh is not just another BJP politician. He is quintessentially an OBC leader. Indeed, he represents a unique confluence of two streams: Hindutva and OBC-based politics. No other leader of stature has been able to co-opt OBC politics into the Hindutva framework the way he has. He embodies the greatest success of the "social engineering" strategy of accommodating plebian groups into Hindutva's hegemonic project.
.. Singh is not just the BJP's ablest non-upper caste leader. He is potentially a candidate for India's first Prime Minister shaped by "backwardist" politics. Losing him ... could well inaugurate (BJP's) reduction to a largely urban upper caste, upper class, elitist party. Such a party could still have a significant presence in politics, but it could hardly hope to come to power on its own, even less to transform India the way Hindutva aspires to do. (Source: The Times of India, 26 November, 1999)
