After the Lok Sabha election in Haryana ended in a tie between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with both parties winning five seats each out of the 10, the agrarian State gears up for yet another round of political slugfest with the Assembly poll due in less than 100 days from now.
As the Congress and the BJP, the two major political forces in the State, get battle-ready banking largely on the Jat and Other Backward Class (OBC) vote banks respectively, the Scheduled Castes (SCs), who comprise around 20% of the State’s population as per the 2011 Census, could be the deciding factor in the Assembly poll.
The voting pattern for the SCs in Haryana over the past decade, going by the number of reserved Assembly seats held by different parties, suggests that the community voted overwhelmingly for the BJP in the 2014 Assembly poll, but remained evenly scattered in the previous election.
Political observers, however, attribute the Congress’s performance in this Lok Sabha poll in Haryana to the SCs rallying behind it in a big way with the party successfully building a narrative suggesting that the BJP would amend the Constitution and scrap reservations if it wins 400 seats.
While a similar narrative is unlikely to work in the Assembly poll, Hisar-based lawyer Bajrang Indal, who quit the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) to join the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha poll this year, argued that the community was expected to vote on similar lines as in the Lok Sabha poll, especially with the two elections taking place within a short span of time and the mood being largely anti-BJP.
“Besides, Congress’s Sirsa MP and former Union Minister Kumari Selja, an SC leader, is being seen as a strong contender for the Chief Minister’s post if the party returns to power. This is another important reason for the community to rally behind the Congress,” said Mr. Indal.
Ms. Selja, he added, not only has a clean image and is younger compared to Jat leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda, another contender for the top post,but has also made no secret of her ambition to be the Chief Minister. “She has the support of prominent Congress leaders in the anti-Hooda camp and is considered close to the party’s central leadership, brightening her prospects,” Mr. Indal added.
Indian National Lok Dal worker and SC leader Ramesh Kumar said there was also the surging anti-incumbency factor against the BJP due to the government’s failure to deliver on various schemes for the community besides high inflation, poor implementation of e-initiatives such as the ‘Parivar Pehchan Patra’ and frequent paper leaks, which, he added, could work to the Opposition’s advantage.
The BJP — which provided a ‘quota within quota’ for the SCs in the State’s higher educational institutions with the creation of a new group called the ‘deprived Scheduled Castes’ comprising 36 communities such as Valmiki, Bazigar and Dhanak — has expedited the delivery of various welfare schemes, aimed mostly at the SC community.
In June, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini gave away 7,500 allotment letters for 100-square-yard plots to BPL families at Sonipat and provided benefits amounting to more than ₹100.68 crore to 83,633 beneficiaries under three ambitious schemes, including Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Awas Navinikaran Yojna, in another programme at Panipat, accelerating the implementation of various schemes for the BPL families and the SC community.
BJP’s SC leader Ashok Tanwar, who unsuccessfully contested the Sirsa Lok Sabha this year, said the political significance of SCs in Haryana cannot be overemphasised with the community having a presence in all 90 Assembly constituencies. “Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the community has supported the BJP over the past decade, but was misled by the Congress’s false campaign. Although the community has seen through the Congress’s agenda and would return to the BJP’s fold, the party would soon plan a special campaign to reach out to them in the run-up to the poll,” he said.
Digital news platform National Dastak editor Shambhu Singh told The Hindu over phone that the SC community, with improvement in its education status over the years, has become politically aware and voted for protection of its “Constitutional rights” and “growth”, unlike the other communities, which, he claimed, voted mostly on caste lines. It was underscored by the fact that the community voted for the Congress, instead of the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Aazad Samaj Party, in Haryana and elsewhere during the Lok Sabha poll, he added.
Mr. Singh, however, cautioned that the Congress could not take the support for granted, both in Haryana and nationally, as the community could still shift its loyalty to the BJP if the party corrected its course and addressed their grievances.
“In Haryana, it might be difficult for the Congress to retain the SC vote bank in the Assembly poll by merely appointing a party president belonging to the community. An experiment similar to Punjab, where the Congress made Charanjit Singh Channi, an SC, the CM, could pay dividends in Haryana,” he said, adding that the BJP,while capable of making surprise moves to win back the SC vote bank, needs to address the issues plaguing the community, including the backlog in SC vacancies, the lack of representation for the community in different spheres and poor implementation of various schemes for them.
Mr. Singh said the Congress and the BJP were no more capable of forming governments on their own and needed alliances and might need support in Haryana as well.
With the INLD and the Bahujan Samaj Party forging an alliance in Haryana and the entry of Chandra Shekhar Aazad’s Aazad Samaj Party in State politics, the fight for the SC vote is likely to further heat up in the days to come.