Are Upper Castes Turning Against BJP?
The recent bypoll defeats are a warning, not a rebellion against BJP. But the dissatisfaction is national.
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"Aatmamanthan ka samay" (Time for introspection), This is what senior BJP leader and former Madhya Pradesh minister Yashodhara Raje Scindia posted on X after the BJP's defeat in the recent by-elections. Being from the Gwalior royal family, her post could well have been dismissed as being specifically on the loss in Datia, which falls in the same region. However, she specified "#DatiaByelection #BankipurByelection", making it clear that her emphasis was national.
This is a common refrain among many sections in the BJP ecosystem since the bypoll defeats and the youth protest that culminated in education minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation. The underlying sentiment is that the bypolls were a warning from Upper Castes. A warning, not a rebellion.
How Upper Castes Shifted in Bypolls
Bankipur was, no doubt, the most shocking result, being the bastion of BJP national president Nitin Nabin and his father before him. A seat dominated by Kayastha, Brahmin and Thakur voters, this was considered one of the BJP's safest seats in Bihar. The seat was won by political consultant-turned-politician Prashant Kishor, marking his emergence as an important political player in Bihar. Read this story to more about the Bankipur result's significance.
In MP's Datia, a seat where both the BJP and Congress have traditionally been competitive, the loss is being attributed to a shift of Upper Caste voters as well as dissatisfaction among supporters of prominent BJP leader Narottam Mishra.
The BJP is facing Upper Caste dissatisfaction in both states. The other common aspect is the fact that both states have seen a change of guard in the past three years, supposedly at the behest of the BJP's top leadership.
In 2023, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, one of the last serving BJP satraps from the pre-Modi-Shah era, was replaced by political lightweight Mohan Yadav.
In Bihar, the BJP finally got its own CM in Samrat Chaudhary earlier in 2026 after easing out ally Nitish Kumar.
Though the focus has been on the defeats in Bankipur and Datia, the result in Manjalpur isn't insignificant.
This is an entirely urban seat in Vadodara, Gujarat, dominated by Upper Caste and Patidar voters and a sizable presence of Marathi-speaking voters. The BJP has been winning the seat by massive margins. Compared to the 2022 Assembly polls, the BJP's vote share fell by nine percentage points while that of the Congress increased by 18 percentage points. The Congress' votes increased by 5000 even in absolute terms even though overall turnout fell by over 80000.
Though the Congress benefitted from the AAP not contesting, the result does indicate that many BJP voters stayed away and a small chunk shifted to the former.
It Goes Beyond the Bypolls
The Upper Caste expression of resentment isn't restricted to these bypolls. The emergence of 29-year-old Ravindra Singh Bhati in the politics of Western Rajasthan also needs to be seen in light of the dissatisfaction of the Rajput community. A former student leader from the ABVP, Bhati fell out with the organisation and fought student elections independently and won. In 2023, Bhati won the Assembly election from the Sheo constituency in Barmer district as an Independent. The BJP was pushed to fourth place.
Then Bhati contested the Lok Sabha elections as an Independent and stood second, securing 5.8 lakh votes, losing to the Congress' Ummeda Ram Beniwal. BJP candidate Kailash Choudhary, who was at that time MoS in the Modi government, was pushed to a distant third.
Rajputs almost entirely deserted the BJP in that election and Choudhary narrowly escaped losing his deposit.
In Uttarakhand, a rabble-rousing youth leader Ashish Negi is spearheading the revival of the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal. Negi's main pitch is giving protecting the rights of locals over land, jobs and resources. He accuses the BJP government of giving benefits to outsiders at the expense of locals.
Most recently, he accused the state government of "compromising" in the standoff with Nihang Sikhs in Chamoli and Karnaprayag. His controversial Facebook videos on the issue led to sharp reactions from several Punjabi and Sikh social media users.
Protests Against UGC Rules and Atrocities Act
Earlier in 2026, several Upper Caste and anti-reservation groups protested against the UGC regulations (later stayed by the Supreme Court). At that time, these groups had demanded the resignation of then education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Some of the protesters celebrated when Pradhan was finally removed over the NEET issue, a sizable section of the anti-reservation protesters also took it as an affront.
"When we demanded Dharmendra Pradhan's removal, the government could easily have moved him to another ministry. They would have been saved from this embarrassment. They chose to ignore general castes who have always supported them," one of the organisers of the anti-reservation protests told The Quint.
"They bent before a bunch of leftists instead of their own core supporters," the activist added.
An even bigger reaction was seen over the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018 that was enacted by Parliament to nullify a Supreme Court judgment that had diluted the strict provisions of the original 1989 law.
Madhya Pradesh witnessed the most intense protests, especially in the Gwalior-Chambal region. SAPAKS, a new party dominated by Upper Caste youth, contested the elections and led to the BJP's defeat in at least two constituencies in the 2018 Assembly elections.
In the same election cycle, in Rajasthan, the BJP under Vasundhara Raje faced Rajput ire due to the encounter of Ravana Rajput gangster Anandpal Singh.
The Elephant in the Room
The bigger reason for Upper Caste resentment is unemployment and stagnation of incomes under the The Modi government. The perception among Upper Castes is that the BJP only cares about a handful of industrialists and the poorest of the poor who benefit from the government's direct transfer schemes.
"The last policy that the BJP brought for the general castes was EWS quota (in January 2019). That too after we taught them a lesson in MP, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan (in the 2018 Assembly election cycle)," the anti-reservation activist said.
The BJP may have to take a similar step to stem the dissatisfaction among its strongest support base.
Luckily for the party, by and large the Upper Caste groups also admit that they don't have too many options. According to them, the Congress is now closely aligned with social justice parties in states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and it is adopting a similar approach nationally.
Therefore, Congress is seen as a party which can be an option only on a seat-by-seat basis, depending on candidates. This is what happened in Datia.
For a time, the Aam Aadmi Party evoked curiosity among a section of Upper Caste youth on social media but that waned after its defeat in Delhi in 2025.
Prashant Kishor's win has now generated considerable buzz among this section, even outside of Bihar, especially on social media.
However, an open rebellion against the BJP is still a distant prospect. The dominant sentiment is that the BJP should treat the Bankipur result as a warning and take steps to address Upper Caste concerns.