LUCKNOW: Dalit icon BR Ambedkar’s carved busts and statues dotting large swathes of Dalit hamlets and villages, will be washed, cleaned and offered floral tributes on his 131st birth anniversary on Thursday.
Carried out by BJP workers, the exercise marks the saffron outfit’s bid to reinforce its pro-Dalit positioning, days after it stormed to power for the historic second term in the recently concluded UP polls.
BJP sources said, all 98 organisational districts of UP have been asked to carry out the activity with fervour and distribute sweets and food among Dalits.
“This will be an extensive statewide outreach programme. The party will also educate the Dalit community on how policies of BJP governments at the Centre and the state have been executed without caste and community discrimination,” said UP BJP chief of SC Morcha, Ram Chandra Kannaujia. The party also plans to hold conventions dwelling into “nationalistic” ideas of Ambedkar and how he worked for social emancipation of socially oppressed classes.
Experts said, the move signals BJP’s overt attempt to expand its social base through amalgamation of Dalits, amidst a perceptible erosion of Mayawati-led BSP’s political foundation. “It is largely assumed that BSP’s sharp decline was a result of marked shift in Dalit vote towards BJP,” said social scientist and former director of Giri Institute of Social Studies, Prof Ajit Kumar Singh.
BSP’s vote share plummeted from over 22% in 2017 to under 13% this time, triggering a flurry of debates on the fast-depleting electoral fortunes of Mayawati. Experts said, Ambedkar’s works and ideas have come to occupy symbolic eminence in the larger electoral arithmetic of political groups.
Ambedkar’s busts, which signify Dalit aspiration for social empowerment, have often been desecrated, stoking caste discord and fear in minds of socially oppressed classes. Experts said, historically Dalits had a simmering social incongruity with the Thakur community. “It has largely been a local phenomenon. Of late, Dalits have acrimonious terms with socially powerful OBC communities, who have large land holdings,” he said.
Not surprisingly, virtually all parties have been consistently invoking Dalit ideologues and icons, particularly Ambedkar, to fasten their grip on SC community which account for 19% of the voting class in UP.
The SP too has been trying to expand its base to include Dalits, other than Muslim and Yadavs. So, has been the case with Congress which has been seeking to consolidate the Dalit community.
