Mandal did absolutely stopped being a factor outside Hindi belt, it was never a factor in places like TN , pot 2000 Karnataka , Kerala , Odisha, Bengal. our new cycles and political theories heavily revolve around Hindi belt and not never contemporary Hindi belt but Hindi belt of like 2000s, because that's when most of the political gurus were active on the ground instead of their offices.
Most parties haven't been reservation parties funnily enough, congress itself didn't do much with reservation despite being in power for 10 years with reservation pasand regional parties. congress has taken in hard left turn after 2020s, they are in some cases more left than lefty parties like CPIM,CPM which is actually limiting their potential with a lot of urbanist liberal voters, who like western liberal ideas but the shitlib policies that congress is trying to push.