Why BJP, Congress Will Clash Over Reserved Seats In 2024 Lok Sabha Election

The stage is getting ready for the upcoming electoral battle in May 2024, when the Bharatiya Janata Party under Prime Minister Narendra Modi will become the first non-Congress government to seek a third consecutive term, while the opposition parties prepare to stop it.

With just 15 months left for the contest, the union government and the opposition are arming themselves with better political tools. The first step in this direction was taken by PM Modi during the recently concluded national executive meeting of the BJP in which he categorically asked members of the party to design the campaign in such a way that the party and its message reach out to the most marginalised communities and the poor.

In an effort to expand the social and electoral base of the BJP, PM Modi has often asked party workers to act as a bridge between the union government and marginalised communities like the Pasmanda Muslims, and the Bohra community.

“Our campaign should be designed in such a way to reach out to all the marginalised communities. We should act as a bridge between them and development activities of the government. This should not be done with the consideration of votes but with the idea of building a strong nation,” PM Modi said at the end of the two-day national executive meeting in Delhi.

The party first adopted the strategy to reach out to the marginalised sections in the 2019 general election when the BJP hoped that the 32 crore people who had benefited from different schemes of the union government would vote for it. Building toilets, providing homes for the poor, opening bank accounts for the poor, providing cooking gas, and disbursing Rs 6,000 to farmers were all successful schemes for the BJP.

The Congress, the largest opposition party, has also shortlisted at least 56 reserved seats that it wants to win in the 2024 general election. The first meeting of the strategy group, which looked at election preparedness in these 56 constituencies, was held in New Delhi on January 21.

There are a total of 131 reserved seats in the country, of which 84 are reserved for the Scheduled Castes and 47 for the Scheduled Tribes. The Congress has decided to focus on 28 reserved for the SCs and STs each where the party ranked second in the 2019 polls.

“The Congress had won only 10 constituencies in the 2019 general elections. There are 121 constituencies that the party lost in the last polls. There is a realisation within the party that it should again focus on reserved constituencies, and hence it has been decided to find new leaders and focus on these 56 constituencies," said PL Punia, spokesperson for the Congress. "These 56 constituencies are different from the 10 constituencies that the Congress won in the last general elections."

The Congress strategists have decided to target four seats each reserved for the SCs in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan; and three in Telangana. The party will also focus on at least two SC reserved seats each in Bihar, Gujarat, and Haryana. Among the seats reserved for the STs, the Congress has decided to contest six in Madhya Pradesh, four each in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh, and another three in Jharkhand. The Congress will also contest at least two ST reserved seats each in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Telangana.

For the past two Lok Sabha elections, both in 2014 and 2019, the ruling BJP was the biggest winner in the reserved constituencies. Of the total 131 reserved for the SCs and the STs in 2019, the BJP had won in 86 with a strike rate of 65%. The party had a strike rate of 60% in 2014.

The 131 reserved seats are a key contest in the Lok Sabha polls for all political parties because together these form 24% of the Lok Sabha seats or a quarter of the parliamentary constituencies, which has the strength to tilt the electoral battle in favour of the winner in these constituencies.

“The decision of the Congress party to target 56 constituencies that are reserved for SCs and STs suggests that it is willing to concede space to other opposition parties," said Ashutosh Kumar, professor at Panjab University. "The ability to win is the most important aspect, and in the past two Lok Sabha polls, the BJP performed much better in these reserved constituencies. The belief that SCs and STs have been traditional voters of Congress and they will continue to vote for the same party may not be true anymore.”

Gyan Verma was Senior Editor (Politics) at Mint. He has been a journalist for nearly two decades and writes on the politics and intersection of policy and politics.

The views expressed here are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of BQ Prime or its editorial team.