The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab is not leaving any strata of the society untouched. The blue brigade is traveling that extra mile to woo Dalits in Punjab by laying the foundation stone of the multi crore Valmiki Ram Tirath temple in Amritsar on Friday.
All geared up, the party has planned a massive rally to be attended not only by the State’s senior political leaders of the ruling combine — SAD and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but also by the eminent religious personalities including Yog Guru Baba Ramdev, Art of living head Sri Sri Ravishankar, Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh, among others.
Announced in 2011 State budget, the temple — to perpetuate the rich legacy of Bhagwan Valmiki — will finally see the light of the day when the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal would lay down the foundation stone of this Rs 115 crore “world class historical monument-cum-temple” with inbuilt Museum and Panorama.
In an apparent attempt to woo the dalit electors ‘religiously ahead 2014 lok Sabha polls, the State Government is celebrating the ‘Pargat Divas’ of Bhagwan Valmiki — the Valmiki Jayanti — in the State for the first time ever. The development assumes significance as 35 percent of the state’s population comprises dalits. With Punjab having highest number of dalit population, comprising one-third of its total population, they hold key in the impending elections.
Turning this event into a success, the state government has put on job its entire administrative machinery working tirelessly for making all arrangements. Notably, Badal has been supervising the project, right from its conceptualization, designs, among other things, by himself. After riding on the victory bandwagon by wooing the state voters by constructing and announcing memorials of almost all kinds for Sikhs before 2012 assembly polls, the SAD-BJP combine is leaving no voter unmoved in the process.
The alliance, in the previous parliamentary polls, had not received a vote of acceptance from the people of Punjab as the SAD managed to bag just four seats out of the 10 it contested, while its ally, the BJP secure win at just one seat out of the three contested by it. The move is being seen as a balancing act on the part of the coalition; rather an attempt by the combine to woo not only the Hindu but Dalit voters too across the state.
Sources told The Pioneer that the Akali Dal has made it a point to gain support from all the sections of the society, especially the scheduled caste community that forms the major portion of the entire state population. SAD, in its recent meeting, had passed a strongly-worded resolution lashing out at the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre for its “polices of discrimination, injustice and repression against the Dalits”.
The party had also commended “far-sighted pro-dalit policies” of the SAD-BJP Government in the State and endorsed its schemes like Shagun scheme, the Atta-Dal scheme and many others — something completely denied by the National Scheduled Caste Alliance (NSCA). The Dalit association alleged that the State Government for not being sincere towards the State’s Scheduled Castes and only using them to take a political mileage.
On the other hand, the Congress too is turning towards the Dalits in the state to provide the party with a plank to stand, after falling flat on the ground in back-to-back elections. Besides raising the Dalit issues, the Congress had announced a Dalit conference to be held somewhere in July — that never happened. However, both the Congress and Akali Dal had strong pockets of influence among Dalit voters with the Deras playing significant role in deciding who will form the next government. But, the 2012 assembly polls clearly defined the division of Dalits over political lines.
Once the stronghold of the Congress, the party is now losing out to the Dalit vote bank. In 2012 State Assembly polls, the party had fared badly as far as its performance in the Dalit-dominated region — Doaba — is concerned.Congress managed to win only 10 reserved seats out of the total 34 in 2012 polls in a state having highest scheduled caste population. If that is not enough, it has failed to secure a win even a single seat in Jalandhar district.
“Congress lost on 24 seats out of the total number of 34 reserved seats during 2012 assembly elections giving a clear indication of the party’s failure to secure its Dalit vote bank. Entry of the People’s Party of Punjab, Bahujan Samaj Party, among others, could be the reason of dwindling vote share as that have divided the dalit votes,” said a senior Congress leader, requesting anonymity.
Party’s former president Shamsher Singh Dullo too criticized the party leadership for ignoring interests of dalits and Hindus while allocating tickets during previous assembly elections that led to its defeat. Mincing no words, he said: “In Congress, dalits are being ignored and if a dalit leader is there, it is only due to the compulsion of reservation policy. We had been limited to 33 percent seats only. Even, I, who was a four times MlA from Khanna constituency, was denied ticket on a general seat.”