The Indian Inclusive Party (IIP) is one of the seven constituents of the Opposition Mahagathbandhan alliance, which is set to take on the ruling NDA in the November Bihar Assembly elections.
The IIP was floated by a former Congress leader Indrajeet Prasad Gupta, popularly known as I P Gupta, in July 2023.
Despite being a new player in Bihar’s political landscape, Gupta, 55, negotiated hard with his senior allies in a bid to claim eight-nine seats for the IIP to contest the Bihar elections. Eventually, he settled for three seats including Saharsa, Beldaur (Khagaria) and Jamalpur (Munger). Gupta is himself contesting from Saharsa.
Gupta shot to prominence in April this year when the IIP held a huge rally in Patna’s Gandhi Maidan to demand “separate quota” for his Tanti-Pan samaj which is currently listed in the Extremely Backward Class (EBC) category. The success of his rally catapulted Gupta to the big stage of state politics.
The IIP chief, who hails from Patauna village under Mallehpur police station in Jamui district, is an engineer by profession. He has an M.Tech degree and has run a business in the IT sector.
Gupta belongs to the Tanti or weaver group, which he claims comes under the larger Pan community.
In July 2015, the state government put the Tanti and Tatma groups from the EBCs in the category of the Pan, Sawasi and Panar groups, which are listed among the Scheduled Castes (SCs).
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Gupta, who was a businessman settled in Mumbai, decided to take the plunge in the 2020 Bihar polls, making his debut from the SC-reserved Sikandra seat in Jamui. He however lost the seat, garnering just about 5% votes. It was won by the Jitan Ram Manjhi-led HAM(S).
Later, he joined the Congress, which he quit only in April this year – more than one-and-a-half years after floating his outfit. In terms of ideology, he still remains aligned with the Congress though.
He came into the limelight after the Supreme Court, in an order in July 2024, quashed the state government’s July 2015 order and shifted the Tanti and Tatma groups back to the EBC category. Gupta emerged as one of the few politicians in Bihar to raise his voice against this development. He went all out to target the Nitish Kumar-led government for not defending in the apex court the state’s 2015 decision to give these groups the SC status.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Gupta, who has already hit the campaign trail, said: “The weaver community has been neglected for a long time. Now that the Supreme Court shifted them back to EBCs, I have taken it upon myself to fight for their quota. Our demand is separate quota for Tanti, Tatma and other castes coming under Pan samaj. It was only after I started taking up their cause that the mainstream parties started noticing me”.
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Over the last one-and-a-half years, Gupta has also held several meetings under the aegis of Akhil Bhartiya Pan Mahasangh over his quota demand.
Referring to a recent X post by the BJP’s Godda MP Nishikant Dubey stating that the BJP would work on the Pan quota issue after the Bihar polls, he said: “Now BJP has started talking about quota for Pan samaj.”
Gupta also said several people would say “I don’t look like a neta”. To them, he said, his standard response was: “Majdoor ka beta hoon, majdoor hi lagunga (I am a labourer’s son, and I will indeed look like a labourer).”