Mani D’mello

To placate Dalits on the eve of the state assembly polls, Nationalist Congress Party’s newly-appointed state chief, Sunil Tatkare ensured that his maiden visit to places of political or religious significance was Chhaitya Bhoomi, in Dadar.

With an eye on the forthcoming legislative polls scheduled in October, Tatkare is learnt to have visited the ChhaityaBhoomi on Friday late morning along with supporters immediately on taking over the mantle as NCP state chief.

Unlike, most political leaders who would visit a place of worship like Siddhivinayakmandir to invoke the blessing of the religious deity to meet success in their political venture, Tatkare keeping in mind that Dalit vote bank support in the state is crucial for NCP’s poll success, choose visiting ChhaityaBhoomi over other places of political or religious significance.

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

It is an acknowledged fact that around ninety five percent of the Dalit electorateexercisetheir franchise in elections and majority of them comprise the vote bank of the Republican Party of India (Athavale) who wields a political clout in Aurangabad, pockets of Marathwada, Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and western Maharashtra. .One of the strengths of RPI (Athavale) which is a poll ally of Shiv Sena-BJP alliance andheaded by RamdasAthavaleis, the only Dalit political party where every district unit is headed by a seasoned Dalit leader and supporters arepolitically 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 DrBababsahebAmbedkar memorial on 12.5 acres land in Indu Mill, Dadar,

Unlike RPI (Athavale), another Dalit political parties, BharipaBahujanMahasanghPartry (BRP) headed by DrBabasahebAmbedkar’s grandson PrakashAmbedkar, 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 nagarpanchyat 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 theDalits on the issue of building a memorial in honour of DrBabasahebAmbedkar at Indu mills is, PrakashAmbedkar’s brother Anandraj who heads the Republican Sena. Its Republic Sena which laid siege to Indu mills demanding a memorial for the DrAmbedkar 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 BahujanSamajwadi 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 have been by and large successful in convincing a large section of Maharashtrian Dalits that unlike other Dalit parties headed by Maharashtrian leaders, BSP’s 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.”