With Lok Sabha elections due next year, the Uttar Pradesh unit of the BJP is renewing its efforts to reach out to Dalits, women, and other marginalised sections of society, at a time when the Dalit-centric Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is losing its relevance among the Scheduled Castes (SC).
Within a two-week period, the ruling party is holding twelve mega conferences — six each for Dalits and women across U.P. — where top BJP leaders are invoking the humiliation meted out to BSP founder Kanshi Ram, the BJP’s welfare schemes for Dalits and women, and the progress made by marginalised social groups under the saffron regime. “We are trying to strengthen the party with these conferences and trying to develop a bonding with the community which was cheated by all other parties in the past,” said Ram Chandra Kannoujiya, who heads the BJP’s SC wing in U.P.
Asked whether the outreach efforts are aimed at the 2024 election, he replied: “Political power and electoral victory holds the key for any party, and only then the pro-poor policies of the BJP can reach the community.”
Outreach conferences
Two SC conferences were held on October 17 and 19, at Hapur and Aligarh respectively, while four such conferences are planned in the next two weeks: at Kanpur on October 28, Prayagraj on October 30, Lucknow on November 2, and Gorakhpur on November 3. Similarly, on October 17 and 19, conferences for women were held in Bulandshahr and Hathras respectively, while future conferences and planned for Auraiya on October 28, Mirzapur on October 30, as well as at Hardoi and Ballia in November. The State’s Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has attended all four meetings held till now, and is slated to attend the rest of the conferences as well along with other senior party leaders.
The BJP’s decision to start these conference among the SC community in western U.P. is strategic, as Dalits comprise a sizeable electorate in the region, where the party suffered reversals in seats like Bijnor, Nagina and Saharanpur in the last general election in 2019.
The conferences are among several outreach initiatives by the party. “We recently held Basti Sampark aimed at our community and other marginalised groups to sensitise them about their rights and government schemes. After the conferences, more outreach initiatives will be undertaken at localised levels,” added Mr. Kannoujiya.
BSP decline
With the BSP losing its relevance in the State’s electoral calculus, this is being seen as a suitable time to bring Dalits into the party fold and within the broader umbrella of the BJP’s formula of nationalism combined with social security. The BSP, a Dalit-centric party which used gather a majority of SC votes in the State, polled only 12.88% votes in the 2022 Vidhan Sabha election, its lowest vote share in almost three decades. This is transforming the State into a bipolar polity, between the BJP and the Samajwadi Party, which secured a solid 32.06% vote share with 111 Vidhan Sabha seats.
“The BSP is not active and its electoral base is eroding continuously since the BJP’s rise in 2014. Hence, the ruling party believes that as the BSP is not a major contender in Lok Sabha polls, it may get a deeper inroad into the Dalit vote bank,” said Manindra Nath Thakur, a political scientist teaching at JawaharLal Nehru University who closely follows U.P. politics.
