Congress’s love for Dalits a sham, says Mayawati after Kharge wins top post

Kharge, a Dalit leader from Karnataka, trounced Shashi Tharoor in a historic election held four days ago to become Congress chief

Bahujan Samajwadi Party leader Mayawati, on Thursday, called Congress’s “love” for the Dalits a “sham”, and said the grand old had always tried to make the community a “scapegoat”. Mayawati was reacting to the news of Mallikarjuna Kharge, who comes from a Dalit community, becoming the new party president on Wednesday.

“Is party ko apne achche dino mein daliton ki suraksha aur samman ki yaad nahin aati, balki bure dino mein bali ka bakra banate hain, (This party never remembers about protection and respect for Dalits in its good times, but it in its bad times it makes the community a scapegoat),” Mayawati said in a terse reaction on Kharge’s election as Congress president

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“History is witness to the fact that Congress neglected and humiliated B R Ambedkar and his community,” the BSP supremo said in a post on her Twitter handle.

Political observers in Uttar Pradesh, however, said that Mayawati’s reaction to Kharge’s win was reflective of her apprehension that the grand old party could make attempt to wean away her party’s Dalit vote bank.

According to media analyst J P Shukla, Congress very well knows that Mayawati’s influence with the Dalits was not as strong as it used to be. “A section of the Dalits had voted for the BJP in the March Assembly polls in UP,” Shukla told DH. He said that the BSP had lost in all the reserved assembly constituencies, reflecting Dalits’ “disenchantment” with her party.

Recently, Congress leadership had appointed Brijlal Khabri, a Dalit leader who had moved from the BSP, as the party’s Uttar Pradesh unit chief. The state Congress leaders had hailed Khabri’s appointment as the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president and said that it would send a positive message to the Dalit community.