This story is from July 4, 2015

Are dalits visiting temples, Maya asks cadre to find out

Are dalits in UP visiting temples? That’s what Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati wants to know. Initiating one of its kind survey, BSP chief Mayawati has asked her cadre to fan out in the scheduled caste-dominated colonies across the state to assess the affect of saffron forces’ attempt to bracket dalits as `Hindu first’ to bring them under the BJP umbrella.
Are dalits visiting temples, Maya asks cadre to find out
LUCKNOW: Are dalits in UP visiting temples? That’s what Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati wants to know. Initiating one of its kind survey, BSP chief Mayawati has asked her cadre to fan out in the scheduled caste-dominated colonies across the state to assess the affect of saffron forces’ attempt to bracket dalits as `Hindu first’ to bring them under the BJP umbrella.
Party insiders claim that BSP ranks aim to spread a word among dalits about the age old ‘varna’ system that put them at the bottom of social ladder and even deprived them of entering temples and perform puja. Not only dalits, but OBCs, too, would be asked as to why they were not ‘pujaris’ (priest) in temples.
Maya's fresh instructions to her cadre is seen as a desperate attempt to arrest the saffron surge making inroads into her core dalit vote bank ahead of UP assembly elections due in 2017. The alleged bracketing of dalits as Hindus is claimed to have played a key role in BJP’s landslide win in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
“People know about it. It is just a matter of making them (dalits) realize the ground reality and how they have been swayed through communal propaganda,’’ confirmed BSP state president Ram Achal Rajbhar. A senior BSP leader said that the dalits would be told about the communal politics of not only the BJP but also the Congress and the Samajwadi Party. “They (opposition) say that dalits are being used by BSP as its vote bank. Are not they doing the same thing,’’ asked a senior BSP leader who is also entrusted the responsibility to visit the dalit colonies.
Sources said that BSP cadres have already started visiting some of the dalit-dominated colonies with exhaustively compiled documents detailing on examples of dalits being discriminated in the BJP-ruled states like Gujarat and Rajasthan. The documents also carry the statements and observation of Mayawati about the ruling BJP and SP government at the centre and state, respectively, and why dalits should vote for the BSP in the next assembly elections.
“What the present BJP government at the Centre has done for dalits,’’ asked a senior BSP leader. Significantly, Mayawati has been accusing the NDA government of depriving dalits of job opportunities and carrying out various developmental projects with the help of private sector. “Even the messiah of dalits, Kanshiram, has not been conferred the Bharat Ratna,’’ said Rajbhar. “All these facts are also being told to the dalits,’’ a BSP leader said.
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