BJP's Egmore man has no reply to queries on party's anti-dalit image

CHENNAI: Ma Venkatesan smiles as he recalls the day in the 1980s when actor and AIADMK founder MG Ramachandran came to a locality near the Triplicane slum he lived in. “A guy got the two leaves symbol tattooed then and there. My father, a soda pushcart-vendor and lifelong MGR fan, was thrilled to see him,“ recalls Venkatesan, 36.
That is probably the only fond memory Venkatesan, BJP's candidate in Egmore, has of the Dravidian parties.Soon after, RSS, the ideological parent of BJP, took him under its wing.“Initially, I attended the shakha to learn exercises. Later, they were instrumental in helping me finish school by offering free tuitions and complete postgradua tion,“ says Venkatesan, sitting in his office on Agraharam Street near Gangadeeswarar temple in Purasawalkam. He joined BJP four years ago and is one of the prominent dalit faces in the party . “RSS never asked me my caste. There was never any discrimination,“ he says.
Venkatesan, who holds an MA in philosophy from Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda College in Mylapore, is the author of four books on dalit issues.
Talk veers to the flak BJP has received in the aftermath of dalit student Rohit Vemula's suicide and his family's conversion to Buddhism. He admits to facing difficult questions from youngsters about whether the party is anti-dalit, but declines to elaborate, ending the answer with a long silence.
Venkatesan knows that Egmore is a tough constituency, given the grip of the veteran Parithi Illamvazhuthi, who switched from DMK to AIADMK. “But he is old and campaigns from a car. I go door to door,“ he says, adding that people recognise him as one of those who helped during the December floods. A win seems unlikely , insiders admit, but they want to end up at least second or third.