Rahul's 'escape velocity' strikes two birds with one stone: Maya, Modi

Gandhi's speech comes against the backdrop of Congress' new focus on Dalits, who were once its strong supporters, but have shifted loyalty mainly to BSP

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi at 'Dhanyabad Rally' in Aligarh on October 9, 2013. — PTI Photo

Reaching out to Dalits ahead of 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi accused Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati of not allowing others from the Dalit community to emerge as leaders. The Congress leader said the Dalit community "needs the escape velocity of Jupiter" to achieve success. Like the US presidential elections, will the 2014 polls be won or lost on the basis of performance on television, speeches and social networking sites? As of now, the readers have to depend on intelligent guesswork. 

 

“Dalits look at Ambedkarji with pride, because he was the first person who gained escape velocity and went to America. This was the first stage of the Dalit movement — and when he came back, he worked on the Constitution and on reservation with the Congress party.”
 

The Amethi MP went on to add that the second stage of the movement was led by Kanshi Ram, who used the energy of reservation to provide further “escape velocity” to Dalits. 

 

Gandhi’s speech at Vigyan Bhawan — followed by another at Talkatora Stadium to mark Dalit Adhikar Diwas (Dalit rights' day), where he described the community as the reed ki haddi or spine of the Congress — comes against the backdrop of the party’s new focus on Dalits. 

 

Dalits, once strong Congress supporters, shifted their loyalty mainly to the BSP. At present, Mayawati is out of power in Uttar Pradesh, her pull is not so strong on Dalit votes outside the state as well. Hence, the Congress has begun working on a determined strategy to win back its traditional vote bank. Realising that the party is no longer the default choice for Dalits, the Congress chalked out a strategy to identify and nurture leaders from the Schedule Caste community and strengthen the Dalit voice within the party. 

 

Gandhi's effort to make a dent in the former Uttar Pradesh CM's Dalit vote-bank began in January 2008 in Bundelkhand, the BSP’s traditional support base, when he toured drought-ravaged rural areas and slammed the state government for not doing enough. On January 26, 2008, he spent a night in the house of a Dalit in Amethi.

Political pundits are of the view that the Grand Old Party knows it has to create a dedicated support base to win 2014 battle. Unlike the BSP, Samajwadi Party (SP) and the BJP, which have ruled the state at some time or the other in the past two decades and created vote bases, the Congress has to start from scratch.

 

The Congress, which won 83 of 85 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the 1984 general election, had been on a decline till 2009, when Gandhi inspired a partial comeback, with the party winning 21 seats in Uttar Pradesh.

 

Congress watchers feel that the 42-year-old leader has decided to focus on Dalits to counter BJP' s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s growing influence in urban areas. Rahul’s theme song has been the poor and he has been dwelling on empowerment at the grassroots while Modi’s loud rhetoric revolves around high growth, anti-Congressism, terrorism and Pakistan.

 

The polarisation of the polity in UP has led to the revival of the BJP which has been playing the Hindu / Ram temple card to improve its prospects in the state. The Jat community in Western UP, known for its loyalty to Ajit-Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal has reportedly shifted their loyalties to the BJP after the Muzaffarnagar riots.

 

For all Gandhi’s rhetoric against Mayawati in 2012 Assembly elections, which set the tone for the environment against an alleged corrupt BSP, it  was the SP — which focussed more on the freebies than on Mayawati — that reaped the harvest. Party insiders said Gandhi failed to win Dalit votes and had compounded his mistakes by alienating the party's traditional higher caste Brahmins.

 

One of the major problems is that little is known about Gandhi's views on the economy, international relations and domestic issues like the reservation based on caste. Critics say the Gandhi does not have the charisma to cut into hard political arguments, and despite going on and on about development would not convince Dalits that the Congress is in a position to deliver.