Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) supremo Nitish Kumar’s move to dump the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) and switch to the BJP-led NDA camp is likely to have its repercussions for Uttar Pradesh politics too.

The dramatic turn of events in Bihar is likely to hit the Samajwadi Party (SP)’s bid in UP to woo Kurmis – a dominant OBC community that is a part of SP national president Akhilesh Yadav’s targeted support base of “Pichchde (backwards), Dalits and Alpsankhyak (minorities)” or PDA.

After Nitish took the oath as the CM again at the head of the NDA government Sunday, Akhilesh, in a post on “X”, accused the BJP of allegedly conspiring and limiting a “future Prime Minister” to the post of the CM. His message claimed that Nitish could have been the PM if he had continued with the Opposition INDIA bloc.

There had been a buzz in political circles last year that Nitish may contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from UP with the support of the SP in order to position himself as a challenger of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The JD(U)’s UP unit had proposed three seats in this regard for Nitish’s consideration – Mirzapur, Phulpur and Ambedkar Nagar – which have strong OBC presence, mostly of Kurmis.

Then a banner had also surfaced outside the SP headquarters in Lucknow that featured a photograph of Nitish with Akhilesh amid a slogan: “UP + Bihar = Gayi Modi Sarkar.”

Nitish belongs to the Kurmi community, whose vote is decisive in several constituencies in eastern and central UP as well as Bundelkhand.

Kurmis are a landowning farming community whose status varies across regions in various states including UP, Bihar, Odisha, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.

A Social Justice Committee set up by then CM Rajnath Singh in June 2001 had estimated that OBCs constituted 43.13% of UP’s population, of which Yadavs were 19.4% and Kurmis 7.46%.

After the demise of ex-Union minister Beni Prasad Verma in 2020, the SP has lacked a Kurmi face. Verma was considered “number 2” to Mulayam Singh Yadav in the party for several years. To reach out to non-Yadav OBCs, especially Kurmis, ahead of 2017 Assembly elections, Akhilesh had appointed Naresh Uttam Patel as the state party chief, who is still continuing in his post.

Ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections, the BSP’s Kurmi leader Lalji Verma joined the SP. A few weeks later, the BJP’s then Nanpara MLA Madhuri Verma joined the SP. Madhuri contested the Assembly election on the SP ticket but lost. Lalji won the election from Katehri. Akhilesh later inducted Lalji in the pary national executive as a general secretary.

As a part of its outreach to the Kurmi community, the SP also forged an alliance with the Apna Dal (Kamerawadi) founded by Krishna Patel, wife of late Sonelal Patel, a prominent Kurmi leader and founder of the Apna Dal.

“If Nitish ji would have continued in INDIA alliance and travelled in UP, that would have benefited the SP and Congress both. Kurmi had presence in over 40 districts of UP. Just like Kurmis and Yadavs came together in Bihar when JD(U) had alliance with RJD, same social equations could have developed in UP too. But Nitish’s exit from INDIA has dealt a setback to that strategy. Current UP situation is appearing to favour BJP that already has an alliance with OBC-based parties,” said an SP leader.

The BJP has an alliance with the Apna Dal (Sonelal), a party faction led by Union minister Anupriya, Nishad Party and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP).

In July last year, SP leader Sushma Patel from a politically influential Kurmi family of Jaunpur district in eastern UP quit the party to join the BJP.

In November, the SP got another setback when its founder member and three-time MP from Lakhimpur Kheri, Ravi Prakash Verma, a prominent Kurmi leader, quit the party

along with his daughter Purvi Verma to join the Congress.

“If Nitish had been in INDIA, that would have benefited both SP and JD(U). But Nitish as an individual has no impact in UP. JD(U) candidates had been losing elections. So, Nitish’s exit from INDIA is not going to cause any damage to SP in UP,” said Lalji Verma, SP national general secretary.

The state BJP had seen three Kurmi presidents – Om Prakash Singh, Vinay Katiyar and Swatantra Dev Singh over the past several years. The party’s national vice-president Rekha Verma, a MP from Dhaurahra, is also a Kurmi leader. There are at least four ministers in UP government from the Kurmi community. Also, six-term MP from Maharajganj Pankaj Chaudhary is a Union minister.

“In 2022 UP Assembly polls, BJP had given tickets to more than 36 Kurmi candidates, of whom over 22 had won. That shows that Kurmis are associated with BJP. With Nitish joining NDA, our Kurmi vote share is going to increase,” said a BJP leader.