New Delhi: With murmurs of rift between top Congress leaders, BJP is now working to use it to the party’s benefit in the assembly elections early next month.
Selja Kumari, AIIC general secretary and the party’s Dalit face of the state, has been missing from campaigning, and BJP has accused Congress of ill-treating its scheduled caste leader.
Former chief minister Manohar Lal has made an open offer to Selja to join BJP even as the party has deployed several SC leaders to exploit the alleged unrest in Congress.
Haryana has 17 SC reserved constituencies. Out of these, Congress won seven in 2019 while BJP won five, JJP won four, and one seat was won by an independent who is now contesting on a Congress ticket.
The SCs make up 20% of the state’s population and Jatavs account for half of it. BJP is focusing more on non-Jatav Dalits to make a sizable gain in the segment, party leaders told ET. Among its 17 candidates on reserved seats, the party has fielded eight Jatavs and nine non- Jatavs.
The state government has accepted the recommendations of Haryana State Scheduled Caste Commission for sub-classification of SC reservation.
The party has deployed many SC leaders-including Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal and Ashok Tanwar, who lost to Selja in recent LS polls – to actively campaign in the reserved seats. Leaders from other states are also working at the grassroot level to win over SC voters.
“Congress and other parties have their fixed caste-based vote bank while BJP gets votes across the caste,” Satish Poonia, the party’s Haryana in-charge, told ET.
