Elections in Karnataka have increasingly become bipolar, with 77% of the seats recording bipolar contests in 2018

New Delhi:

Rahul Gandhi’s comment that the Congress has lost the confidence of Dalits because it did not protect the interests of the Dalits and backwards the way it should have in the 1990s, has been accepted by the young generation of the party. 

“Such an admission is a sign of his large heartedness,” said party MP Tanuj Punia. 

“There must be something in it if Rahul Ji said it. There have been shortcomings which must be addressed now,” said party MP Kumari Selja. 

Yesterday, addressing a programme organised by Dalit influencers, Mr Gandhi said merely getting political representation for the Dalits and backwards would not help solve their problems unless they got “bhagidari” in institutions and wealth.

He also said that once the “original base” of the Congress party is back, the BJP and the RSS would have to run away. It will happen soon, he added.

The admission, though, did not move the Congress’s INDIA allies much. 

“If the Congress had not lost their (Dalits’ and backward castes’) confidence, they would not be in this condition today,” said Samajwadi Party’s Ramgopal Yadav. 

Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Manoj Jha said what Mr Gandhi said was a “fact”.

“We were students then. But the Congress of that time — we do not know what difficulties they were facing. But the honesty with which he admitted to it – i think he is clear what the next step should be, what the plan of action is. Refusing to call it a damage control measure, he said it was much more than that,” he added. 

Asked about the caste census, a key demand of the Opposition including the Congress, he said it should happen. 

If “85 per cent of the population want something, they would make themselves heard. If people do not hear them, they will do something explosive,” he added. 

Kannauj:

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, who is contesting today from the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat, says he is secure in the support of Dalits, that came to the party when it had tied up with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party in 2019. In contrast, the BJP, he implied, despises the so-called lower castes.

“When I went to a temple, the BJP got it washed,” he said, referring to the BJP workers’ purification ceremony at the Gauri Shankar Mahadev Mandir of Kannauj after his visit. A video of the purification ceremony was widely circulated in social media and the incident had provided boost to the SP efforts to weave a rainbow support group of voters at the constituency.

“Today, the fight is big. Today, the BJP wants to change the Constitution which taught us how to live… They will do so if they get 400 seats,” Mr Yadav said, underscoring what has become the Opposition’s biggest allegation.

Mr Yadav has returned to Kannauj to reclaim an old family bastion — his father Mulayam Singh Yadav had nurtured the constituency for years. But the seat went to the BJP in 2019 and sitting MP and perfume trader Subrat Pathak is out to defend it. The battle is seen as the centrepiece of today’s election in Uttar Pradesh as voting is being held on nine other seats.

The fight will be triangular with the BSP fielding Imran Bin Zafar.
“Kannauj parliamentary constituency has taught me the ABCD of politics… I grew in politics in Kannauj,” Mr Yadav said today, referring to his political debut from the seat in 2000.

The fight for Kannauj will be the first Lok Sabha battle for the SP chief in a long time. In 2022, he had resigned his Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat and retained the assembly seat from Karhal.

Mr Pathak has been a repeat contestant from the seat since 2009 and ended the SP’s 35-year dream run at the constituency after a decade in 2019. His opponent was Dimple Yadav, the wife of the SP chief.

Reminding voters of the old times, Mr Yadav said, “People of Kannauj know how much development took place when Samajwadi Party was in power and why development is not happening here today… We gave world class infrastructure to Kannauj, built the world’s best roads… built a market”.