MUMBAI: The wooing of dalits for votes has begun in earnest in the state with Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray’s call for Bhim Shakti to join Shiv Shakti and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) holding a rally at Shivaji Park recently. However, this has put dalit politics is in a fix as most of the parties are still undecided about the alliance they should forge. Republican Party of India (RPI) leader and MP Ramdas Athavale was cautious during his meeting with his party leaders on Monday. He said dalit parties must come together and decide on the allying with any party. Although writer Arjun Dangle and some youths are likely to go with the Shiv Sena, seniors who have struggled for a dalit identity and Ambedkarite ideology may be against the move. “Those who have not participated in popular movements like the renaming of Marathwada University after Mr Ambedkar may succumb to the Sena’s lure,’’ says Mahesh Bharatiya, an activist of the Prakash Ambedkarled Bharatiya Republican Party (BRP). But Suresh Mane, general secretary of the BSP’s state unit and professor of law in Mumbai University, said in view of the BSP’s growing clout there was no need for dalits to join hands with other parties. The BSP, he pointed out, had done much better than the other dalit parties in the Nagpur municipal elections last year.However, they managed to win just two seats in the BMC elections. The problem is dalits are divided politically and socially with strong differences between the politically dominant, militant Mahar community and the more sober, Hinduised Chambhar community. “The Chambhar community had given solid political and financial support to Babasaheb Ambedkar in the early part of his movement but found itself discriminated against later,’’ says Ravindra Bagde, author of a book on the community. B.V. Bhosale, reader in Mumbai University’s department of sociology and author of a just-published book, ‘Charmakars in Transition’, said by and large, the community also did not join the mass conversion to Buddhism led by Dr Ambedkar. He added that the Chamhars also felt neglected by the Congress over the years and it was the Shiv Sena which gave them political representation. Two members of the community — Bala Nandgaonkar and Baban Gholap—were even made ministers by the Shiv Sena. “Several Chambhars are staunch followers of Dr Ambedkar, but the Mahars, who consider themselves true Ambedkarites, never trust us. Just as Muslims are constantly expected to show their loyalty to India, we have to prove that we are Ambedkarites,’’ an activist lamented.