Congress plays 'Dalit card' whenever its defeat is certain: Chirag Paswan

New Delhi: Union minister and BJP ally Chirag Paswan on Tuesday took a swipe at the Congress for playing the "Dalit card" in the election for Lok Sabha speaker, claiming that the opposition resorts to the ploy whenever its defeat in a contest is certain.

The Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) leader said in a post in Hindi on X that when the Congress-led opposition knew that it would lose the vice-presidential poll in 2002, it fielded Dalit leader Sushil Kumar Shinde.

It named another Congress leader Meira Kumar, who hails from a Dalit community, as its choice for president in 2017 when the numbers favoured the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate Ram Nath Kovind, who was elected, Paswan said.

"Now, when it obviously does not have the numbers in the Lok Sabha speaker's election, it has nominated the Congress' Dalit leader K Suresh," Paswan said. "Are Dalit leaders only symbolic candidates for the opposition?" Paswan himself hails from a Dalit community.

Suresh is the opposition's choice for the Lok Sabha chair against Om Birla of the ruling NDA, which has a majority in the Lower House.