Can BJP Win Over Dalits From AAP? Full Story in 5 Charts


Unlike many other states in the Hindi heartland, BJP has historically failed to win over Dalits in Delhi at least at the Assembly election level. The reason for this isn’t the BJP’s weakness, rather it is the reverse – it is the fact that the BJP has always been strong in Delhi.

Right from the Jan Sangh days, it has always had a strong footprint in Delhi. Soon after Independence, the Jan Sangh acquired a strong base among Punjabi refugees and traders. During the Ram Jannmabhoomi agitation it expanded among Jats and Gujjars as well. These sections on their own gave BJP a stable base of 30-35 percent and it came to be seen as a party of dominant sections, which prevented any significant expansion among Dalits.

There is also the fact that Delhi has had some history of Dalit assertion.

In this article in Forward Press, Kusum Viyogi narrates how Shahdara in Northeast Delhi emerged as an important centre for Dalit writers and intellectuals in the 1980s and 1990s.

“The Bharatiya Dalit Sahitya Manch and Bharatiya Dalit Sahitya Academy were instituted in 1984. The Dalit Lekhak Sangh (DLS) was formed in Shahdara on 15 August 1997,” Viyogi writes.

He writes that Dalit organisations in Delhi are able to “launch protests that reach and involve thousands at a go from Shahdara, partly because the hub of Dalit Literature today provides them with the vocabulary and the verve, as well as the ready audience, to do so”.

This culture made it difficult for the BJP to co-opt Dalits into its fold as it had done in many parts of the country following the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation.

The BSP too, has, always had a presence in Delhi. But the default beneficiaries were the Congress and later AAP. Though led by Upper Caste leaders like Sheila Dikshit and Arvind Kejriwal, the pro-poor politics of these parties helped them establish rainbow coalitions in Delhi, of which Dalits were a central part.

The BJP has in the past two elections, succeeded in winning over Dalits at the Lok Sabha election level but it has somehow failed to do so at the Assembly level. Will it succeed this time on?

The party is basing its calculations on the divisions within Dalits.



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