New Delhi: As the BJP parliamentary board sat down on Monday to pick its presidential candidate, a senior party leader watching from the sidelines immediately ruled out two names.
In the end, it all boiled down to Uttar Pradesh. After having given many prime ministers to the country, UP would, if Ram Nath Kovind – current Bihar governor-- is elected, be giving India its first President; a Dalit at that.
As the meeting progressed, the fact became clearer to all present that uppermost in the minds of BJP and RSS top bosses was Uttar Pradesh in 2019.
In UP, Mayawati's Bahujan Samajwadi Party alone has up to 22% votes. A combined kitty with the Samajwadi Party and Congress has the potential of going over 50%, taking India's most populous state out of the equation in Modi's second bid. So this proposed unity was the one BJP needed to check by wooing away the Dalit votebank.
The Dalit outreach comes at a time when the ruling party has been painted as stridently anti-Dalit. From its reactions to the suicide of Hyderabad scholar Rohith Vemula to its lack of response to the attacks on Dalits by cow vigilantes, the party over the last two years has only reinforced an image that it doesn’t care for the weakest section.
Party insiders said the other name in consideration, from the RSS, was Thawar Chand Gehlot. The social justice minister is the Dalit face of the party and is a member of the parliamentary board as well. But unlike Kovind who comes from UP, Gehlot is from Madhya Pradesh.
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