Post BSP-Left pact, Dalits find mainstream space

Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, March 27

While all mainstream parties have traditionally fielded candidates in Doaba keeping in mind the Dalit vote bank, it is for the first time in decades that parties with an inherent Dalit ideology are finding a voice in a mainstream alliance of the state, which comprises 32 per cent Dalit vote share.

Parties like the BSP and Revolutionary Marxist Party of India (RMPI) are collectively contesting five seats in the state (BSP three and CPI one and RMPI one) as part of the Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA).

The PDA comprises Sukhpal Khaira’s Punjabi Ekta Party, Bains brothers’ Lok Insaaf Party, BSP, CPI, RMPI and Dr Dharamvira Gandhi’s Nava Punjab Manch. It is also the first time that the Left and BSP are part of a same alliance in the state.

While the BSP will contest the Anandpur Sahib, Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur seats, the RMPI and CPI will contest from Gurdaspur and Ferozepur, respectively.

The last time the BSP enjoyed a privileged place was in 1996 as an alliance partner of the SAD (it had fielded three candidates, Hoshiarpur, Phillaur and Ferozepur, and had won all).

Since then the party witnessed a steady downfall with the 2014 elections being its lowest point in the state as it secured just 1.9 per cent votes. Similarly, in the 2017 Assembly elections, party candidates lost deposit from 116 of the 117 seats.

The RMPI, which had been contesting independently, never found representation in the state’s mainstream politics before. It is a breakaway unit of the CPI (M), which had expelled its present general secretary Mangat Ram Pasla in 2001. The party unsuccessfully contested two seats in the 2014 LS polls and eight in the 2017 Assembly polls.

Pasla said, “With the Left veering towards the elitist lobby and the mainstream parties never giving Dalit or peasant issues prominence, it is the first time in decades that a platform shall air their concerns. We intend to make these issues the prime discourse of state’s politics.”

Rashpal Singh Raju, president, state BSP, said, “The reason the BSP lost ground is that we refused to make compromises with parties with contrasting ideologies. But for the first time issues of peasants, working class and small traders are being taken up by one alliance.”