Mani D'mello

 

In Maharashtra the Dalit vote bank though is around 12 percent of the total electorate, Dalit voters play a decisive role in the elections. The highest percentage of electorate who exercise their franchise in every election- grampanchayat to parliamentary polls are Dalits, according to the state election commission in Maharashtra.

 

Approximately around 95 percent of the Dalit electorate exercise their franchise and majority of them are comprise vote bank of the Republican Party of India (Athavale) whose wields a political clout in Aurangabad, pockets of Marathwada, Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, western Maharashtra.One of the strengths of RPI (Athavale) headed by Ramdas Athavale is, this is only Dalit political party where every district unit is headed by a seasoned Dalit leader and supporters are political active in Maharashtra and therefore they hold a sway among 60 percent of the dalit voters in the state. RPI (Athavale) is believed to have beefed up its vote bank in the backdrop of its state-wide campaign for building Dr Bababsaheb Ambedkar memorial on 12.5 acres land in Indu Mill, Dadar,

 

Unlike RPI (Athavale), another Dalit political parties, Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh Partry (BRP) headed by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s grandson Prakash Ambedkar, have marginal influence scattered around in small pockets in Nagpur, Akola, Bhandara, Yavatmal. Amravati, Chandrapur, Buldana, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli in Vidarbha and Ratnagiri in Konkan region.   In Akola, the city mayor is from the BRP and the nagar panchyat is controlled by BRP. There is also  a sizeable influence of BRP overall in the nagarparishad and nagarpalikas in Vidarbha region, where 5 percent of the Dalit vote bank comprises of BRP ardent supporter in the state.

 

But, the Dalit leader who has capitalized to the maximum his influence over the Dalits on the issue of building a memorial in honour of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar at Indu mills is, Prakash Ambedkar’s brother Anandraj who heads the Republican Sena. Its Republic Sena who laid siege to Indu mills demanding a memorial for the Dr Ambedkar and Republic Sena’s aggressive stand is believed to have generated pressure on the state government to impress upon the Centre to handover the Indu mill land owned by the National Textile Corporation for the memorial since it will impact the forthcoming polls in the state.

 

This would facilitate into Republic Sena supporters overwhelming supporting the Congress in the polls.Though the Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) has made inroads into Maharashtra, it has been successful only in strengthening its vote bank in Nagpur where it managed to capture around 15 per cent of the Dalit vote in the last legislative assembly polls in 2009. Nevertheless, BSP has made its presence felt in Thane by capturing two seats each in Ulhasnagar and Thane municipal corporations. BSP state chief Vilas Gorad claims that BSP is not in a tearing hurry to play power politics in Maharashtra and is only pursuing its goal of consolidating the Dalit vote bank in the state.

 

“We are currently concentrating on fortifying BSP in Maharashtra and therefore we are strategically digging our heels deep into the Dalit vote bank without the support of the mainstream political parties in the state. We have the total support of the non-Maharashtrian Dalit vote bank in the state and gradually are winning the confidence of Maharashtrian Dalits. We have been by and large successful in convincing a large section of Maharashtrian Dalits that unlike other Dalit parties headed by Maharashtrian leaders, BSP aim is to empower the Dalit masses and economically and socially uplift them like BSP has done in Uttar Pradesh. Wait and watch BSP emerging as a political power to reckon with in the next five years,” says Gorud.

 

No doubt BSP will pose a huge challenge to the other Dalit political parties in the state, but a newly launched political outfit Maratha Aghadi led by a Maratha community youth leader, Bhushan Jadhav experimenting with a political plank to bring Marathas and Dalits on one platform to fight for their rights, could give a huge scare to political parties in the state. Around two years back, Jadhav launched the Maratha Aghadi in the state for the economic up-liftment of Maratha community which has been denied reservations by the state government which has been dominated mainly by the Marathas.

 

Jadhav’s popularity graph rose when he also gave a call to the Dalits unrepresented by political parties to join hands to jointly fight for rights and reservations from a single political platform. “This is social engineering in state politics which no Dalit political leader has tried out. Athavale did follow my footsteps a little over a year back demanding that Marathas should get 15% reservations, whereas other upper caste communities, including Brahmins must be allotted 10% reservation in jobs and education. But people know that he is not serious about protecting the rights of Dalits in the state and is more interested in seizing power for himself.”

 

 

All the same, Athavale who had walked out of the Congress-NCP alliance two years ago to join hands with the Shiv Sena to form the SenaBJP–Baharatiya Party- RPI (Athavale) alliance has been jolted to a large extent by the Democratic Front government’s political master-stroke decision to build a memorial for Dr Ambedkar at Indu Mills on the 12.5 acre land at Indu Mills.

 

Athavale who owes his meteoric rise in power politics to NCP chief and union Agriculture minister Sharad who catapulted him as a young Dalit leader into mainstream politics in 1990, is strongly suspected to have been planted on the saffron alliance around two years back, to dent the Congress in electoral politics in the future which has been piggy riding on the back of Athavale for garnering Dalit support in the polls in the last two decades.

 

Pawar’s wily political move to get Athavale to cross over to the saffron alliance has boomeranged for both-Pawar and Athavale, following Prithvirtaj Chavan of the Congress pursuing the Dalit masses demand for a memorial for Dr Ambedkar at Indu Mills and being successful in accomplishing it last year.

 

A poser before Athavale in the backdrop of Prithviraj Chavan almost gifting the memorial on a platter to the Dalits is, will the saffron-alliance meet his demand of parting with 30 per cent of the seats to contest in the forthcoming legislative elections scheduled around October 2014?

 

A leader close to Athavale says that RPI (Athavale) who little more than a year back had come out in the open demanding reservation for the economically backward upper caste in state as a social engineering strategy, will compromise for 11 percent cents of the seats with the saffron-alliance after negotiations and hard bargaining.“However, if Athavale is pushed with his back to the wall at the time of negotiations, he is likely to give in and accept around 16 seats at least- in Mumbai, Thane, Nashik, Jalna, Beed and Solapur, which have a sizable population of Dalits.”