rewrite this content and keep HTML tags
Unlike many other states in the Hindi heartland, the BJP has historically failed to win over Dalits in Delhi, at least at the assembly election level. The reason for this is not the weakness of the BJP, rather it is the reverse – the fact that the BJP has always been strong in Delhi.
Since the days of Jan Sangh, it has always had a strong footprint in Delhi. Soon after independence, the Jaan Sangh gained a strong base among Punjabi refugees and traders. During the Ram Janma Bhoomi movement, it also expanded among Jats and Gujars. These sections of their own gave the BJP a stable base of 30–35 per cent and it was seen as a party of the dominant classes, which prevented any significant expansion among the Dalits.
It is also a fact that Dalit claims to Delhi have some history.
In this Article In Forward Press, Kusum Viyogi tells how Shahdara in northeast Delhi emerged as an important center for Dalit writers and intellectuals in the 1980s and 1990s.
“The Bharatiya Dalit Sahitya Manch and Bharatiya Dalit Sahitya Academy were instituted in 1984. The Dalit Lekhak Sangh (DLS) was formed in Shahdara on 15 August 1997,” Viyogi writes.
He writes that Dalit organizations in Delhi “are able to launch, reach out and engage thousands of people at once from Shahdara, partly because the hub of Dalit literature today also provides them with the vocabulary and verve”. , as well as to the prepared audience, as well as, to the prepared audience. So”.
This culture made it difficult for the BJP to co-opt Dalits into its fold, as was done in many parts of the country after the Ram Janmabhumi movement.
BSP, too, always had a presence in Delhi. But the default beneficiaries were Congress and later AAP. Although led by upper caste leaders like Sheila Dikshit and Arvind Kejriwal, the poor politics of these parties helped them establish rainbow coalitions in Delhi, of which Dalits were a central part.
In the last two elections, the BJP has managed to win over Dalits at the Lok Sabha election level, but it has somehow failed to do so at the Assembly level. Will it be successful this time?
The party is counting on divisions within the Dalits.
