BJP shifts focus on 17 reserved seats, highlights pro-Dalit steps in final push
As the election campaign enters the last leg of the high-stakes October 5 polls, the BJP has changed its tack regarding 17 reserved seats, considered to be crucial for the formation of government in Haryana.
Under a new strategy rolled out by the BJP, a more-focused approach of micro-managing the election campaign as opposed to big rallies has been rolled out in these segments. The strategy revolves around exposing atrocities committed on the Dalits during the 10-year rule of the Congress government under Bhupinder Singh Hooda and highlighting pro-Dalit initiatives of the BJP governments at the Centre and Haryana, which the party sources said could blunt the anti-incumbency against the BJP in the polls.
People don’t want Mirchpur, Gohana again
People don’t want Mirchpur and Gohana incidents to be repeated. During the past 10 years, the BJP’s ‘double-engine’ government has taken a number of pro-Dalit initiatives for which we are getting tremendous response from the voters. Krishan Bedi, BJP leader
Besides, a more proactive role for the RSS volunteers and ‘panna pramukhs’, holding of personalised workers’ meetings by inviting influential Dalit leaders and monitoring of political situation on day-to-day basis in these constituencies are part of the strategy, a senior BJP leader said.
Senior Dalit leader and Narwana candidate Krishan Bedi told The Tribune that atrocities on the Dalits during the Congress rule were still fresh in the minds of the SC community and they didn’t want the repeat of these. After the Congress won both reserved seats of Ambala and Sirsa in the recently held Lok Sabha elections apparently on account of the Jats and Dalits consolidating behind the party, the BJP took several steps for welfare of the Scheduled Castes (SCs), which constituted over 20% of the total voters across the state. One of the major initiatives was the Haryana Government accepting the report of the Haryana State Scheduled Castes Commission regarding the sub-classification of the SCs for the purpose of reservation in government jobs into two categories following a Supreme Court ruling.
Now, the quota for SCs and other pro-Dalit initiatives are being showcased to woo voters in the reserved segments.
Even during the distribution of party tickets, the sub-classification of the SCs was kept in mind with Jatavs (who form about half of the SC population) getting eight tickets, followed by Valmikis (four), Dhanak (three) and Bazigar and Bavaria (one each).
In the 2019 elections, the Congress won a maximum of seven reserved seats followed by the BJP (five), JJP (four) and Independent (1). “The BJP stands a good chance on four seats won by the JJP and one by Independent besides retaining five seats it won in the last polls,” the leader claimed. The sources said BJP’s cadre votes coupled with possible cutting of Congress’ Jat and Dalit votes by INLD-BSP and JJP-ASP alliances would put the party in advantageous position as compared to the Congress. Since a majority of the candidates in the reserved segments are new faces, the anti-incumbency should not be a major hurdle for the party, the sources added.
