Lucknow: With state assembly elections round the corner, Dalit politics is back in reckoning.
The remarks made by Congress MP and the leader of the opposition
Rahul Gandhi on Kanshi Ram during an event to mark the Dalit leader's birth anniversary drew a sharp response from
BSP president
Mayawati.
Rahul said that had the Congress party not made mistakes, BSP founder Kanshi Ram would not have become a Dalit messiah. "Had Jawaharlal Nehru been alive, he would have made Kanshi Ram a chief minister from the Congress," he said.
Reacting to the statement, Mayawati said in a social media post that when Congress did not respect BR Ambedkar and did not mourn the death of Kanshi Ram even for a day, even though he was in the govt at the Centre, how could one expect the Congress to honour Dalits.
"It was the anti-Dalit policies of the Congress which forced late Kanshi Ram to establish BSP," she said.
Later, Rahul Gandhi wrote to the PM seeking Bharat Ratna for Kanshi Ram. A similar demand was made by Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav earlier.
The BSP chief did not spare Akhilesh too and said that even the then Samajwadi Party govt did not announce mourning for even a day when Kanshi Ram passed away.
According to political observers, more than honouring Kanshi Ram, parties are vying for Dalit votes as assembly election is scheduled early next year.
They believe that be the sense of insecurity surrounding BSP chief Mayawati, or the BJP's aggressive Hindutva plank, the BSP's march has slowed down, and the party is losing its grip on Dalit voters, including Jatavs.
The opposition, however, has been claiming that Mayawati acts under the pressure of the BJP.
The BSP could get only 9.88% vote share in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and had lost all the seats in UP. It won 10 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 polls with a vote share of over 19%.
With BSP's gradual downfall, the Congress, the Samajwadi Party, and the BJP are seeing it as an opportunity. More so when the poor performance by the BSP and the BJP resulted in the Congress-SP alliance winning 43 seats (37 by SP, the biggest win since the party was born, and 6 by Congress).
The result boosted the morale of the SP-Congress combine. With elections due next year, both the parties are separately trying to prove themselves as the genuine claimant of Dalit votes.
According to political observers, the reason is obvious. Even though the result has been in favour of the Congress-SP alliance, there has been a debate if the slight shift in Dalit votes towards the alliance was because of the Congress or the Samajwadi Party. Both the parties continue to take credit for the shift.
Be it the Congress or the SP, whichever party proves its worth before the Dalits, it will be in a better position to negotiate on seats if they both decide to contest assembly elections hand in hand.
Dalits are about 21% in Uttar Pradesh. Staking a claim on such a big chunk will be advantageous in the assembly polls.
Wary of the Congress and SP tactics, Mayawati is leaving no chance to scuttle their moves by coming up with counterclaims.
Just like Congress, which is struggling for its revival in UP since 1989, the BSP is also striving to make a comeback.
BSP is also trying hard to attract the youth. While the older generation continues to be loyal to the BSP, young voters are seeing hope in Azad Party chief Chandrashekhar Azad.
It is for this reason that Mayawati has presented her nephew Akash Anand as her alternative. However, Mayawati's "blow hot and cold policy" towards Akash has failed to mobilise youths as expected.
Even as the SP, Congress and the BSP try to prove themselves as the right party for Dalits, the BJP's concern is to keep intact non-Jatav Dalits in party fold and ensure that Jatavs don't shift towards the Congress or SP.
The BJP is better placed if Jatavs remain loyal to the BSP as this will only allow Mayawati to win a few seats. However, if Jatavs shift towards Congress-SP alliance, the combination of Muslims and Jatavs could become lethal for the BJP, especially in west UP. Caste politics once again expected to take centrestage in the assembly polls.
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