Dalit votes without Dalit voices?

Political parties invariably engage with Dalit voters, since the community comes out in large numbers to vote. Normally, in elections, the voter turnout ranges from 50% to 75%, and Dalit voters throng the polling booths early in long queues, and make up to 25% to 40% of the votes polled respectively.

The results of the recent Haryana Assembly elections have reinforced the importance of Dalit votes as a deciding factor for the Congress, which had positioned itself as a champion of Dalits, among other marginalised communities. The ambivalent position taken by Dalit leader Kumari Selja during the Haryana electoral campaign cost Congress dearly. Dalits make up 20 per cent of voters in Haryana, with a decisive majority in 44 non-reserved seats of the 90 Assembly seats. 

Drama unfolded when, in the closing hours of the campaign, another Dalit leader, Ashok Tanwar, was brought back into the Congress’ fold. This seems to reflect a late realisation of the importance of Dalits in the Haryana election. In these elections, however, the BJP did not have a Dalit face but went with an OBC candidate, Nayab Singh Saini. 

Congress’ Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who led the campaign, was not acceptable to Dalits, given his past ten-year tenure (2004-14) as CM, which consolidated the caste dominance of the Jats in all spheres, and Jat atrocities against Dalits (in Gohana and Mirchpur)  were not forgotten even after 10 years.

Political parties invariably engage with Dalit voters, since the community comes out in large numbers to vote. Normally, in elections, the voter turnout ranges from 50 per cent to 75 per cent, and Dalit voters throng the polling booths early in long queues, and make up to 25 per cent to 40 per cent of the votes polled respectively. 

In non-reserved seats, Dalit votes still make up a big chunk, and their vote swing becomes crucial. In Assembly elections, one can safely say no political party can come to power without the mandate of the Dalit segment. Such being the importance of Dalit votes, political parties devise strategies to engage with them.

In Haryana, one strategy was to either support or oppose the October judgement of the Supreme Court endorsing the sub-categorisation of Scheduled Castes. While Congress remained silent and opposed the ‘creamy layer’ portion of the judgement, BJP went ahead in Haryana and promised to implement the sub-categorisation. The BJP had clearly taken on its side 7 per cent of the Dalits, including the Balmiki and Dhanuk communities.

BJP, at the Centre, has announced that it will not implement the creamy layer part of the judgement. This can become a factor in the Maharashtra elections, but no party has raked up sub-categorisation till now, fearing the backlash from the dominant Dalit Mahar caste.

During the Lok Sabha campaign, later in Haryana and now in Maharashtra, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi went around with a copy of the Constitution, pitching for the rights of Dalits in particular. This is the second strategy, where political parties bring up constitutional rights with regard to Dalits because they are emotionally attached to the Constitution. 

The most important strategy relates to reservation as a contentious issue. The 2015 fiasco that occurred when RSS said that it would review reservations, leading to BJP losing the Bihar elections in 2015, is a blunt reminder to all. So much so that BJP played up Rahul Gandhi’s statement at a US university — that he would withdraw reservations if there is fair play — to claim that Congress is an anti-reservation party.

Limited Dalit leadership

Yet, political parties, having benefited from the Dalit vote over the years, shy away from assertive Dalit leadership, like in the case of Kumari Selja. Parties only use Dalit leadership in crisis. One startling example was that of the appointment of Dalit leader Sushilkumar Shinde as the chief minister for less than two years in Maharashtra, before the Assembly elections of 2004. After Congress reaped the benefit of Shinde and formed the government in 2004, they replaced him with a Maratha leader, playing up to the political dominance of the Marathas. Congress did the same, denying Dalit leadership and handing over power to the dominant Jat leadership, in Haryana.

In Telangana, leader of the Opposition and prominent Dalit leader Bhatti Vikramarka, who held the Congress flag high during the 10-year K Chandrashekar Rao regime, was not made Chief Minister after Congress won the 2023 Assembly elections. The party succumbed to the social dominance of the Reddy community. 

Congress, in Karnataka, has a long history of denying Mallikarjun Kharge the CM post. The political and social dominance of the Vokkaliga and Lingayat communities has held sway in all parties in Karnataka, so Kharge could find a place as leader of the Opposition in Parliament and as Congress president, but not as CM. In recent events leading to speculation about a change in leadership in Karnataka, Dalit and tribal leaders and ministers in the government — G Parameshwara, H C Mahadevappa and Satish Jarkiholi have indicated the aspirational tipping point in leadership.

Political parties also face the ire of socially dominant castes, when they find their caste leader is not the CM. BJP faced the undercurrent of Maratha reservation agitation during 2016-19, as Marathas were against BJP’s selection of a non-Maratha, Devendra Fadnavis, as CM. Similarly, Jat reservation agitation of 2016 in Haryana was against a non-Jat leader, M L Khattar, being CM. 

BJP, in Haryana, reaped the benefits of the anti-Jat campaign against the social dominance of Congress’ Jat leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda in the 2014 Assembly elections. Instead of picking up a person from the OBC community or a Dalit as CM candidate, BJP installed an upper caste Punjabi Khatri (M L Khattar), and realised its folly after nine years. It then replaced him with an OBC Saini leader. Dalits shifted loyalties to an amiable Saini rather than a perceivably arrogant Hooda, undermining the promises of equal rights to all ‘36’ communities in Rahul Gandhi’s campaign method. Dalits probably saw Hooda as a greater threat than Rahul Gandhi’s constitutional rights campaigns.

Congress, while facing backlash in Punjab for the 2022 Assembly elections, granted a very late six-month window to Dalit leader Charanjit Singh Channi as chief minister in Punjab. After losing the elections of 2022, however, Congress benefitted in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Punjab due to this move.

Regional parties also woo Dalit voters, but refuse to share power, and lose subsequent elections due to the vacillating Dalit votes. Electoral loss of Telugu Desam Party’s Chandra Babu Naidu in 2019 and Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party’s  Jagan Mohan Reddy in 2024 are stark examples. 

Emergence of Dalit parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Azad Samaj Party, Lok Janshakti and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi has not created a credible scenario of power-sharing with dominant caste parties, thereby wasting and dissipating the electoral power of Dalit votes. But the Dalits of Haryana have thrown BSP’s slogan ‘Vote hamara Raj Tumhara, nahi chalega, nahi chalega’, in the face of Congress this time.

Dalits are a highly aspirational class, evidenced by the high voter turnout in the community. However, political parties have consistently failed to catch up to the aspirations and leadership demands of Dalits over the years. No national party has created another Jagjivan Ram, who held sway on Dalit votes for decades for Congress. Nor have they relented to instate Dalit chief ministers. 

Rehnamol Raveendran is an Assistant professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Allahabad.