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BJP uses ‘sui-dhagaa’ to stitch dalit connect on Ambedkar Jayanti
Amid ongoing lockdown to contain spread of Sars-Cov-2, Darshana Singh, chief of BJP’s women wing in Uttar Pradesh, was busy stitching masks using cotton cloth, thread
Amid ongoing lockdown to contain spread of Sars-Cov-2, Darshana Singh, chief of BJP’s women wing in Uttar Pradesh, was busy stitching masks using cotton cloth, thread and needle was on the eve of Ambedkar Jayanti on Monday.
“I don’t have a sewing machine so I am stitching these triple layered cloth masks by hand. There are various other women who are also stitching these masks which we will provide to women from poor and weaker sections on Ambedkar Jayanti. These would be distributed at booth level while maintaining social distancing,” she said from her home in Chakhania village in Chandauli district.
In the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, the Yogi government has made wearing masks compulsory in the state.
“BJP women wing alone has stitched more than a lakh masks and various NGOs and other party wings too were involved in preparing them,” Darshana said.
Mask preparation and distribution along with feeding at least two poor families in slum areas are part of the BJP’s latest method to connect with the state’s 21 per cent dalits.
The BJP and its allies had won 73 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and the party followed it up by an equally stunning performance in 2017 UP assembly polls when it won 75 out of 85 reserved seats in the state.
In 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP again dominated in the reserved seats winning 15 of the 17 in the state. This is the reason why the party has over the last couple of years used Ambedkar Jayanti to aggressively woo dalits.
Till last year, the party hosted social harmony feasts (‘samarasta bhoj’) on Ambedkar Jayanti in which upper caste leaders dined with dalits to support the RSS’s campaign of caste-free society.
This year, though the novel coronavirus has impacted celebrations and party’s outreach campaign among the community, BJP’s upper caste MP in Kushinagar Vijay Dubey quickly seized an opportunity to connect with the community at Bhujauli Khurd village in Kushinagar dominated by Muslims and Jatavs, the dalit sub-caste to which BSP chief Mayawati belongs.
On April 5, Dubey had rushed to Bhujali Khurd village in Kushinagar to dine with the people on hearing that some of them had refused to have food that the dalit gram pradhan had prepared for five who were quarantined in village.
“They had come from outside and as part of the protocol were quarantined for 14 days. When the two chefs in village refused to make and serve food due to fear that they may get infected if the visitors were suffering from the disease, my wife Leelawati Devi, who is also the village head, made food for them. But one of them refused to have it saying having food from a dalit was not acceptable to him,” said village head’s husband Subhash Gautam, a Jatav.
“When the BJP MP, an upper caste Brahmin, got to know about it, he arrived in the village and announced that he would have food prepared by my wife. Seeing BJP MP having it, others too started having it,” Gautam said.
There were reports that social distancing protocol wasn’t followed as the BJP MP dined with the villagers though party leaders naturally scoff at such reports.
“All in our party are following social distancing,” said BJP’s media cell in-charge Manish Dixit.
The Ambedkar Mahasabha chief in Lucknow Lalji Nirmal said that unlike regular occasions when VIPs and community would assemble at Mahasabha office where urns of Ambedkar are kept, this time he had appealed to all to celebrate Ambedkar Jayanti by remaining in their homes.
“We have urged people to light a lamp and upload videos of how they celebrated the occasion at their homes while maintaining social distancing,” said Nirmal.
He also said since this year Ambedkar Jayanti wasn’t being celebrated as before due to the corona pandemic, the money thus saved would be used to feed the poorest of the poor.
