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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will launch a 10-day campaign on the birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar (April 14) to reclaim its Dalit support base.
The twin objectives of the ‘Dalit Chetna Yatra’ will be to spread awareness about the Narendra Modi government’s various schemes for Dalits and to counter the opposition’s campaign in the wake of the suicide of Dalit doctoral student Rohith Vemula at the University of Hyderabad.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had won 40 of the 84 seats reserved for scheduled castes. Its Dalit leaders have conveyed to the party leadership that the controversy after the Hyderabad suicide had led to an adverse impact. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has also asked the BJP to reach out to the community.
This outreach plan was finalised at a meeting of the party’s Dalit MPs on Wednesday evening. RSS senior Krishna Gopal and BJP’s general secretary (organisation) Ramlal attended. Gopal is looking after RSS-BJP coordination for the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh in 2017. The Dalit vote had significantly contributed to the party’s spectacular performance in UP in the 2014 elections.
Party head Amit Shah is likely to recast his team to include more Dalit faces after the BJP’s national executive meeting over the weekend. Currently, there isn’t a single Dalit in Shah’s team of 39 and only one in the party’s list of 10 spokespersons.
The Chetana Yatra will have BJP leaders go to Dalit localities and the party will also organise camps. Prime Minister Modi will address a rally in Uttar Pradesh on April 14. On March 21, he will lay the foundation stone for an auditorium to be constructed at 25, Alipur Road, in Delhi – the house where Ambedkar had passed away.
At the meeting, BJP’s SC Morcha chief Dushyant Gautam said while Vemula’s suicide was unfortunate, the research scholar was part of protests against the hanging of 1993 Mumbai bomb blast convict Yakub Memon. He said no Dalit could ever support anti-national activities.
Participants also stressed that the party needed to counter Jawaharlal Nehru University students’ union leader Kanhaiya Kumar’s claims that the government at the Centre was anti-poor. The sense was that Kanhaiya’s speeches have struck a chord since he himself comes from a poor family. “We need to tell people that it isn’t the NDA government in power for the past two years but the Congress governments that have been responsible for the level of poverty we see even after 67 years of independence,” a party leader said.
The party has also decided that the PM will address a maximum of eight rallies in West Bengal. This is in some contrast to Modi having addressed over 30 in the Bihar elections of last year. Bengal has a six-phase poll.
