In a significant move clearly aimed at unsettling the Mandal politics of Lalu-Nitish-Mulayam, the BJP for the first time announced a separate OBC Morcha at the national level. The announcement was made during a marathon meeting of the national office bearers held Saturday afternoon. The party also declared its Prabharis or in-charges for various states. This was the first formal meeting of the national office bearers after president Amit Shah appointed the new batch of general secretaries, vice presidents and secretaries. The BJP leadership has been receiving regular feedback about the tough battle ahead in Bihar where elections are due later this year. The party is also aware that repeating the spectacular performance of the Lok Sabha polls would be impossible when UP goes to polls in 2017. Therefore, the party is ready to aggressively woo the backward castes which are still the stronghold of the Mandal camp. Forming a separate organisational branch for the OBCs is another step in that direction. The Sangh has also been of the view that unless the large OBC community is included in the saffron fold, the Hindutva forces would always face challenge from the Mandal leadership. The party, however, already has OBC Morchas in a few states. UP leader SP Singh Baghel is the first president of the OBC Morcha while Haryana politician Sudha Yadav has been made its in charge. Amit Shah has also named the in-charge for all states: Saroj Pande, for instance, has been made Prabhari of Maharashtra while Kailash Vijayvargiya has got West Bengal. In an interesting move, five additional in-charges have been appointed for UP to assist Om Mathur who is the senior in charge.
