The Nitish Kumar-led JDU has started working on wooing Dalit voters to the party, ahead of the Bihar assembly elections next year.
State minister and JDU leader Ashok Choudhary on Thursday said that the party will organise ‘Bhim Sansad‘ on Samvidhan Diwas‘ which falls on November 26. The JDU started organising ‘Bhim Sansad’ from last year to galvanise support of the Scheduled Caste (SC) community in its favour.
Bihar has 19.65% Scheduled Caste population as per the socio-economic survey conducted by the state government and there are several claimants to this vote bank. Two NDA allies — LJP (Ram Vilas) of Chirag Paswan and HAM of Jitan Manjhi — claim to have the support of the two SC castes — Paswan and Musahar — respectively.
With the JDU trying to attract the SC vote bank, there is intense competition among the political parties in the state.
“November 26 is ‘Samvidhan Diwas’. It is due to the Constitution that the SC community got their rights. We have started celebrating the day since last year as it is one of the most important days for the SC community in the country as well as the state,” Ashok Choudhary told ET.
“We have also decided to call a ‘Dalit Mahakumbh‘, a gathering of Dalits across the state to Patna next year on April 14, the birth anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar.”
Bihar is scheduled for assembly elections in October-November next year and these programmes are going to play a crucial role in JDU’s outreach to the Dalit community.
“We will try to consolidate the Dalit voters in favour of the NDA ahead of assembly elections. Our chief minister Nitish Kumar has a history of empowering Dalits during his tenure, be it categorisation of Dalits, caste census or introducing specific government schemes for the betterment of the community,” Choudhary added.
