VHP to launch nationwide campaign to woo Dalits

LUCKNOW: In a bid to bring Dalits into the saffron fold, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) will launch a mega nationwide outreach campaign next month to establish a connection with the Scheduled Caste community.

Starting from October 16, a day before Valmiki Jayanti on October 17, the VHP’s campaign ‘Aprashta Mukta Bharat Samrasta Yukta Bharat’ will reach out to Dalits at 10,000 locations across the country during the four-day campaign, which will end on October 19.

During the campaign, the VHP will organise sahbhoj (community feast), Kanya pojan, samrashta yajna, and samrashta seminars to connect with Dalits and spread a message against the social scourge of untouchability.

In Uttar Pradesh, the VHP has planned to reach out to the Dalit community at 500 locations. The VHP’s campaign hold much importance as, during the last Lok Sabha polls, a sizable section of the Dalit community had drifted away from the BJP, especially in Uttar Pradesh.

The outline of the programme was finalised in Ayodhya last week at a high-level meeting of the VHP’s Akhil Bhartiya Samajik Samrasta Vibhag, presided over by the national head of the organisation, Devji Bhai, and attended by office-bearers from 25 districts of the state.

Uttar Pradesh holds significant importance for the VHP as it sends the largest number of 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha. In the last Lok Sabha election, the BJP’s tally in the state dropped to 33 from 64 in 2019. According to the BJP’s internal assessment, this decline was due to the drifting of Dalit and OBC votes to the INDIA bloc.

The most embarrassing defeat for the BJP in the last Lok Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh was in the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat (Ayodhya), the citadel of the saffron brigade’s politics, where Samajwadi Party candidate Awadesh Prasad, a Dalit, defeated the BJP’s two-time sitting MP Lallu Singh.

“The Faizabad (Ayodhya) defeat has set alarm bells ringing in the BJP. The party wants to reconnect with the Dalit and OBC communities, which had overwhelmingly supported it in the 2014 and 2019 general elections,” said a BJP leader.