http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_congress-bets-big-on-sc-and-obc-votes-in-ahmedabad-civic-polls_1443426
Congress bets big on SC and OBC votes in Ahmedabad civic polls
Published: Sunday, Sep 26, 2010, 9:19 IST
By Niyati Rana | Place: Ahmedabad | Agency: DNA
Apart from laying its bets on young and educated candidates, the
Congress party this time is also betting big on salvaging votes from
the Other Backward Class (OBC) and Scheduled Caste (SC) in all the 64
wards of Ahmedabad city.
The Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) has given tickets to SC
and OBC candidates even for general category seats. Call it a strategy
to bag more votes from the SC and OBC dominated areas of the city or
powerful SC MLA Sailesh Parmar's dominance in the party- the Ahmedabad
Shaher Congress Committee gave tickets to 36 candidates from the SC
even though only 21 seats are reserved for them. Similarly, around 40
candidates from OBC have been given tickets to contest the upcoming
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) election even though the seats
reserved for them are 20.
Former deputy chief minister and Congress leader Narhari Amin said
that they decided to give more tickets to SC and OBC candidates as
some of the wards have huge number of voters hailing from the SC and
OBC.
"It was necessary to give some general category seat tickets to SC and
OBC candidates in all those wards where their population can make
considerable change in the votes bagged. Moreover they are
traditionally Congress voters," said Amin.
He said that to win in the upcoming municipal elections they preferred
to go by the caste factor and select candidates accordingly. "To
choose a candidate we studied the geographical area and presence of
communities in a given ward. If an area is dominated by Patel
community, we have given ticket to a deserving Patel candidate for the
ward," said Amin.
The buzz in the Congress is also that it was Sailesh Parmar who put
forward the logic to give more seats to Dalits in areas where the
community's population is large. "While the rest of the leaders see it
as Parmar and his camp's dominance in the party, internally it is seen
as a better move at winning more seats."
The Congress party has given tickets to 23 Muslim candidates, 44
Patels, 12 Jains, 11 Brahmins and non-Gujaratis each.
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