By elevating OBC leader Samrat Choudhary from Bihar Deputy Chief Minister to CM, the BJP is eyeing the consolidation of non-Yadav OBCs in the state as well as adjoining Uttar Pradesh. However, despite the OBC-isation of Indian politics over the past few decades and the BJP’s success in stitching up a voting bloc of non-Yadav OBC voters with its traditional upper-caste base, the upper castes continue to be ahead of the other communities when it comes to CM posts in the Hindi heartland states.
At present, in the 10 heartland states, there are five upper caste CMs, three OBCs, and two Adivasis (STs). Of these, four upper-caste CMs, the three OBCs, and one tribal CM are from the BJP. The two non-BJP CMs are the Congress’s Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, an upper caste Rajput, in Himachal Pradesh, and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief Hemant Soren, who is from the tribal community.
Of the 11 Deputy CM posts in the heartland states, six are from the upper castes (Rajput, Brahmin, and Bhumihar), three are from OBC castes, and two are from the Scheduled Caste (SC) category. Two Deputy CMs (one Yadav and one Bhumihar) belong to the JD(U) in Bihar, one Brahmin is from Congress in Himachal Pradesh, and the rest are from the BJP (OBCs, Brahmins, SCs, and Rajputs).
The BJP’s UP CM, Yogi Adityanath, and Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami are from the upper-caste Thakur community. Bhajan Lal Sharma, a Brahmin, is the Rajasthan CM and Delhi CM Rekha Gupta is from the Vaishya community.
BJP’s OBC CMs are Mohan Yadav in Madhya Pradesh, Nayab Singh Saini in Haryana, and Choudhary in Bihar. Choudhary, the first BJP CM of Bihar, replaced the JD(U)’s Nitish Kumar, another backward class leader. The BJP’s tribal face, Vishnu Deo Sai, is the Chhattisgarh CM.
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When the BJP stormed to power in the Centre in May 2014, there were five upper-caste CMs, including three from the Congress and two from the BJP, in the Hindi heartland. The three OBC CMs were from the BJP (Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh), the JD-U (Nitish), and the Samajwadi Party (Akhilesh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh). There was one CM in Jharkhand from the tribal community, while President’s Rule was in effect in Delhi from February 2014 to February 2015 after Arvind Kejriwal (upper caste) resigned as CM.
Then, Congress had CMs from the Thakur community in two hill states: Harish Rawat (Uttarakhand) and Virbhadra Singh (Himachal Pradesh), as well as a Jat (general category) CM in Haryana’s Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
The BJP at that time had two CMs from the Rajput community: Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan and Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh.
Changes since 2014
The BJP expanded its footprint in various states in 2014. In UP, it picked Adityanath as CM to succeed Akhilesh. At present, the party’s two Deputy CMs are Keshav Prasad Maurya, who is OBC, and Brajesh Pathak, a Brahmin.
After Hooda lost power in Haryana, the BJP picked Manohar Lal Khattar, a Punjabi Khatri as CM. In March 2024, the party replaced Khattar with Saini to consolidate the non-Jat and OBC votes.
When the Congress defeated the BJP in Rajasthan in 2018, it appointed OBC leader Ashok Gehlot the CM for the third time. However, when the BJP returned to power in 2023, it appointed first-time MLA Sharma the new CM. To reach out to other dominant castes, the party appointed Diya Kumari, a Rajput, and Prem Chand Bairwa, a Dalit, as Deputy CMs.
In Chhattisgarh, Raman Singh, a Rajput, was succeeded by the Congress’s Bhupesh Baghel, an OBC leader. But when the party returned to power in 2023, it gave representation to the tribal community at the top post by electing Sai. However, the party balanced the social equations by appointing Arun Sao, an OBC, and Vijay Sharma, a Brahmin, as Deputy CMs.
In Madhya Pradesh, the Deputy CMs at present are Jagdish Devda, a Dalit, and Rajendra Shukla, who is a Brahmin.
In Bihar, the selection of the current Deputy CMs, Bijendra Prasad Yadav and Vijay Kumar Choudhary — both from ally JDU — reflects a calibrated social balance: Yadavs are the traditional vote base of the opposition RJD, while Choudhary is from the Bhumihar community.
