Agra: BSP eyeing Dalit-Muslim combination in UP to counter BJP

Agra is considered the center of Dalit politics in Uttar Pradesh. The BSP chief Mayawati is known to start all her electoral campaigns with a meeting in Agra, among her Dalit supporters.

With the Dalit oppression issue at the forefront in Maharashtra and Gujarat these days, the BSP chief is again in play, creating strategies to use this sudden rise in anti-upper caste sentiments among her Dalit supporters to her advantage.

The 2019 Lok Sabha elections have become an existential contest for the Bahujan Samaj Party, which had failed to secure any seats in the 18th Lok Sabha, raising questions about the party's 'national' status.

Keeping the upcoming elections in mind, the BSP has started taking advantage of the situation in Maharashtra and Gujarat, citing the so-called atrocities against Dalits in those two states as a way to reacquire the slipping support of the party's Dalit vote bank in UP, especially Agra, where meetings are being held between BSP coordinators and local Dalit leaders.

A local Dalit leader told India Today, on the condition of anonymity, that Dalit leader Jignesh Mewani has opened up a brave front against the central government in Gujarat and this has given all Dalit leaders in the country a fresh new perspective and hope towards propagating the Dalit cause. He said that the central government should make its stand clear about what it is doing about preventing atrocities on the Dalits in the country.

Raj Kumar Nagrath, a social activist and Dalit leader, said, "The Agra MP Ram Shankar Katheria is also the chairman of National Commission for Scheduled Castes, but we are yet to hear any comment from him on this issue. In fact, Katheria is so intent on shining his local politics, that he rarely says anything knowledgeable about national issues pertaining to Dalit rights."

Nagrath further said, "If Katheria is not sincere towards the responsibility he has been given, he should resign from the post and do what he does best, work for the BJP organization."

He said that Gujarat elections have proved that Modi is not invincible as he barely survived the onslaught of a combined opposition against him. If this trend continued and the opposition remained combined, it will be very difficult for Modi to get re-elected, especially after it has been proved that Modi is not even averse to playing the Muslim women against Muslim men, when it comes to gathering votes.

Nagrath said that under Modi, Dalits are not safe. Rohit Vemula, Una, Saharanpur and now Bheema-Koregaon, the list of atrocities against the Dalits is long under PM Modi's government and there has been no concrete action against anyone in these cases. Instead of taking action against the perpetrators of these atrocities, several Dalits have been booked in these cases for inciting violence. Even Rohit Vemula's image was badly maligned by the BJP's propagandists.

While local BSP leader Amjad Qureshi said, "When the Dalits and Muslims have come on one platform, only then a BSP government has formed in UP, and judging from the way the Yogi Adityanath government is behaving against Dalits, it may soon become necessary for the Dalits to come and join hands with Muslims to throw Yogi and BJP out of power in the state. The rehearsal for this will be in the 2019 parliamentary elections, where the Dalit and Muslim votes will combine to bring the maximum number of BSP MPs in Lok Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, breaking Modi's string of victories with a massive and humiliating defeat."

Qureshi said that the Dalits and Muslims of Gujarat, Maharashtra and UP have woken up against the BJP and by 2019, these two communities will join hands in other states as well, under the leadership of a secular front to combat the BJP's aggressive and anti-Dalit stance. He said that Love Jihad, Gauraksha, Triple Talaq and several other issues have been propped up against the Muslims by the BJP and uncountable atrocities have been committed by the party, which will be avenged by throwing the BJP out of power.