Political parties, including the Congress and the BJP, vied with one another to celebrate Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s 124th birth anniversary on Tuesday
BJP leader and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan addressed the Ambedkar Mahakumbh at Mhow that attracts the Dalit icon’s followers every year. The party’s Patna rally is significant because it has been trying to drive a wedge between Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the coalition of Mahadalit castes that helped him gain an edge over his opponents and win a second term in office in 2010.
The BJP, after its success in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, had begun wooing and supporting the rebellion of interim Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi against Mr. Kumar. Party sources say the BJP hopes to collaborate with Mr. Manjhi to fulfil its goal of forming a government on its own in the State that was announced by BJP chief Amit Shah at the Patna rally on Tuesday.
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Experts feel, after Vallabhbhai Patel, Dr. Ambedkar is the next national icon whose legacy both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party will try and lay claims to. The basis for the BJP’s claim to Dr. Ambedkar’s legacy is a project of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh aimed at Dr. Ambedkar as a ‘Nationalist Hindu.’
“Amit Shah has been making references to Dr. Ambedkar and his ideology in his speeches. There is right now a competition of sorts between parties to appropriate his legacy,” Professor Sudha Pai, political scientist and Rector, JNU, said. Both parties have also accused each other of wooing Dalits only for political gain. “The Dalits will see through the BJP-RSS plan,” said K. Raju, chairman of the Congress’ SC department. “The only ordinance that the government allowed to lapse was the one that the UPA had brought in for Dalit rights,” he added. The RSS mouthpiece, Panchjanya , and its English counterpart, The Organiser , launched commemorative “collectors’ editions” on Dr. Ambedkar. Apart from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) that commemorates the occasion every year, the Aam Aadmi Party and the Left parties marked the birth anniversary. The year 2014 was the first Lok Sabha election in which more Dalits voted for the BJP than the Congress and the BSP’s all India vote share registered a sharp decline.