Excerpt: “According to Gilles Verniers, a professor of political science and co-director of TCPD at Ashoka University, the narrative of the rivalry between Brahmin and Thakurs is an inflated one.
“To me, the Brahmin Thakur rivalry is a little bit inflated. Objectively, the BJP provides Brahmin voters a lot of what they want. It’s not clear for them that they would get a better deal by supporting other parties,” says Verniers.”