Close X
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
ADVT 
India

One acerbic comment cracks BJP's Dalit dream in UP

IANS, 21 Jul, 2016 12:04 PM
    In politics, fortunes change overnight. They certainly did in Uttar Pradesh within just 24 hours for two players -- the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
     
    A resurgent BJP trying a shot at power in the state, after a 12-year exile, is suddenly at the receiving end and on the down-slide, thanks to its now former state Vice-President Daya Shankar Singh's foot-in-the-mouth comment. And the BSP, rattled until now by a series of desertions by long-time party leaders, is cashing in on Singh terming its President Mayawati as "worse than a prostitute".
     
    Those four words have suddenly made a see-saw change to the two parties' political fortunes in the state, bound for elections to its legislative assembly early next year.
     
    No sooner than the regional channels beamed a bearded Daya Shankar Singh telling reporters in Mau that the Dalit diva was selling tickets on a price tag and that even sex workers had better morals, the BSP pounced on it as a god-sent opportunity and the party is now at its vocal best to encash the issue politically.
     
    It really does not matter that acting swiftly the BJP not only sacked the leader in question from all party posts and positions but also expelled him from the party for six years. An FIR has been lodged and Mayawati found almost all the opposition standing by her.
     
    The BSP held demonstrations and staged sit-ins at many places in the state, including the state capital Lucknow on Thursday, decrying the utterances of Singh and called for his arrest and trial under relevant laws protecting the person and dignity of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes member.
     
    While the BSP has called off the street agitation after the police assured the arrest of Singh within the next 36 hours, the party strategists, sources say, have already begun rolling out a plan wherein "the party revives the Dalit honour" under the garb of this issue. "This is a great insult not only of Behenji (Mayawati) but the entire Dalit community," roared Mayawati's close aide and former Uttar Pradesh Minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui.
     
    Mayawati herself bared her action plan in Delhi when she said on Thursday that the agitation by her supporters and followers was justified as they not "only treated me as a leader but as a Devi (Goddess)". BJP leaders privately admit that a lot of damage has been done in one day, especially to their cause of making further inroads into the Dalit community.
     
    "It's a sad turn of events. The entire party, especially the Prime Minister, are all for development and progress of Dalits and the marginalised," rued a state BJP General Secretary, admitting that Daya Shankar Singh had in one stroke undone a lot of work done in cultivating the Dalit vote.
     
    The outreach of the saffron camp has also been hurt by many incidents, right from the Rohit Vemula incident in Hyderabad to the recent attack on Dalit youths in Una in Gujarat, say party strategists. But many in the party say the unravelling of the BJP's Dalit dream is much of its own doing. Leaders like Daya Shankar Singh, they say, were promoted out of turn and without any serious political thought.
     
    Singh hails from Balia and was Lucknow University Students' Union president long back. The party played to him, thereafter making him its youth wing president, then giving him a state assembly ticket in 2007, and pitching him as its second candidate in the state legislative council elections this year. Though without any success, he was elevated as state party unit vice-president on July 12.
     
    Arch rival Samajwadi Party, which cannot see eye to eye with the BSP, however, has sided with Mayawati on the issue of women's dignity and Dalit honour, at least publicly, and said that the former BJP leader would be brought to book. With elections to the state assembly just a few months away, the theatre of the absurd has just begun in Uttar Pradesh.

    MORE India ARTICLES

    Indian SC Bans Diesel SUVs Registration, Car Dealers Term It Inappropriate

    Indian SC Bans Diesel SUVs Registration, Car Dealers Term It Inappropriate
    The Supreme Court on Wednesday doubled the environment compensation charge (ECC) for loaded commercial vehicles entering Delhi and imposed a blanket ban on registration of diesel vehicles of 2,000 cc and above in the National Capital Region (NCR).

    Indian SC Bans Diesel SUVs Registration, Car Dealers Term It Inappropriate

    AAP, Congress Ask Arun Jaitley To Quit, CBI Rebuts Arvind Kejriwal

    AAP, Congress Ask Arun Jaitley To Quit, CBI Rebuts Arvind Kejriwal
    Jaitley, former chairman of the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA), rubbished the charges against him. 

    AAP, Congress Ask Arun Jaitley To Quit, CBI Rebuts Arvind Kejriwal

    Calgary Man Convicted Of Fatally Stabbing Neighbour 37 Times Files Appeal

    Calgary Man Convicted Of Fatally Stabbing Neighbour 37 Times Files Appeal
    Nicholas Rasberry was sentenced on Friday to seven years minus time served for the May 2013 death of school teacher Craig Kelloway.   

    Calgary Man Convicted Of Fatally Stabbing Neighbour 37 Times Files Appeal

    Globe-Trotter Narendra Modi Has His Sight Set On Foreign Policy

    Globe-Trotter Narendra Modi Has His Sight Set On Foreign Policy
    In just over 18 months after becoming prime minister, Modi has already visited 30 countries, three of them - the United States, France and Nepal seeing two visits each

    Globe-Trotter Narendra Modi Has His Sight Set On Foreign Policy

    India's Responsibility Not Limited To Its Boundaries: Modi

    India's Responsibility Not Limited To Its Boundaries: Modi
    Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said India was in a "difficult neighbourhood", but the country's responsibility on the security scene was no longer limited to its borders and coastline.

    India's Responsibility Not Limited To Its Boundaries: Modi

    WATCH: Congress, Akalis, Aap Flex Political Muscles In Punjab

    WATCH: Congress, Akalis, Aap Flex Political Muscles In Punjab
    Punjab's ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and opposition Congress held political rallies on Tuesday in Patiala and Bathinda respectively while Aam Aadmi Party held statewide protests against the state government.

    WATCH: Congress, Akalis, Aap Flex Political Muscles In Punjab