BJP MP from Agra and a prominent Dalit face of the BJP, Ram Shankar Katheria, said BSP leader Mayawati’s rally here on Sunday proved that the BSP leader won't be able to bring together Dalits and Muslims during the Assembly elections due next year.
In an interview with The Hindu , Mr. Katheria referred to what he termed as Ms. Mayawati's “desperate attempt to forge a new social alliance between Dalits and Muslims”.
“The Agra rally has been quite frustrating for Mayawati for two reasons. First of all Dalits did not turn up in good numbers for the rally which was much publicised. Secondly, Muslims also did not come even to listen to her,” said Mr Katheria while sitting in his study room at his Agra residence.
“There were no Muslims at the rally. You could easily find that out after going through the pictures of the rally. Muslims are easily distinguishable in a big crowd by their dress,” added Mr Katheria, who worked as an RSS pracharak for 13 years before joining the BJP in 2006.
The former Union HRD Minister for State rejected the BSP’s claims of a “successful” rally and highlighted BSP's failure to fill up the rally venue.
“That ground has the capacity of more than a lakh people. But the BSP leaders chose to keep a large part of the ground vacant and made a helipad out of it. It only showed that the BSP leadership is extremely nervous about its support base,” said the two time BJP MP from Agra.
“Mayawati chose to organise her first political rally here because Agra has a substantial population of both Dalits and Muslims, the two groups whose combination, she expects, will catapult her party back to power in the 2017. But when both of them did not participate in good numbers, it certainly is a bad news for her,” said Mr Katheria, who after being dropped from union ministry, has been trying to position himself as a prominent Dalit face of the party.
When confronted with the data which suggests that there was not a major shift in Mayawati's support base even after her failure to win even a single Lok Sabha seat from the State as the BSP got nearly 20 per cent of the votes, Mr Katheria said “it is just the beginning of her decline”.
With around 8 lakh Dalit population, Agra is among the districts with the highest concentration of the community in the State. Muslims also form a significant part of Agra and its vicinity.
Talking about the BJP's prospects, Mr Katheria argued that the BJP performed well in 2014 general elections because “a large number of the BSP's supporters had voted for Narendra Modi.
“Dalits with BJP”
“The failure of the BSP's Agra rally only shows that Dalits who switched over to Modiji's model of development are still with the BJP,” he said.
But when told about the party’s inability to gather sufficient Dalits for party president Amit Shah's rally earlier, Mr. Katheria asserted that one incident does not mean losing the support of the marginalised community.
