BJP, govt set to launch big Dalit outreach

NEW DELHI: The National Democratic Alliance and the Bharatiya Janata Party are embarking on separate but related largescale efforts to reach out to Dalits, an electorally important grouping.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will speak to all 324 Members of Parliament and more than 1350 Members of Legislative Assembly (MPS and MLAS) of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) through teleconference, as the party launches its three-week-long outreach effort aimed at Dalits.

On April 11, the birth anniversary of Dalit icon and social reformer Jyotiba Phule, the party will launch a Gram Swaraj Abhiyan and will conduct doorto-door activities till May 5 to reach out to poor and marginalised sections of the society in over 20,000 villages, according to a BJP leader who asked not to be named.

On April 14, the birth anniversary of another Dalit icon BR Ambedkar, the government will hold camps in more than 21,000 villages where Dalits make up a substantial part of the population to distribute income and caste certificates to members of socially disadvantaged communities, an official from the ministry of social justice and empowerment said on condition of anonymity.

Dalits have been at odds with the government over issues ranging from the 2016 suicide of Dalit student Rohit Vemula in Hyderabad, the flogging of Dalit workers by self-styled cow vigilantes in Una, Gujarat, in 2016, and the perception that the government didn’t represent their interests well enough in the Supreme Court, resulting in a dilution in a law addressing crimes against Dalits.

Even some of the BJP’S own Dalit MPS and NDA allies have raised this issue within the party as well as with the prime minister.