Frontline On Air | Is this Mandal 2.0?

The 2024 election is still a few months away and new issues might surface that push the issue of caste to the back burner again.

By indicating a higher proportion of Other Backward Castes (OBC), at 63 per cent compared with the 55 per cent that has been speculated for a long time, the Bihar caste survey has given the opposition parties, especially the Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), and its coalition partner the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), a strong case to demand an all-India caste census.

In fact, all the parties of the INDIA bloc have broadly supported such a move. There is a belief that we may be heading for a Mandal 2.0 moment, which could have a noticeable impact on the Assembly elections in 2023 and the Lok Sabha election in 2024.

Read the full story here.