BENGALURU: Congress is organising a massive SC/ST convention in Chitradurga about a week before the Sankranti festival next year to woo the communities, which account for over one-fifth of the population in the state. The state Assembly has 51 SC/ST members and 18 of them are from Congress. The opposition party has traditionally enjoyed the support of these communities. But this time, there could be a change in the equation as the BJP government recently increased the reservation by 6 per cent for the communities to gain their support before the 2023 Assembly elections.
But Congress has been claiming that the process of increasing the reservation was started by the Siddaramaiah government, which constituted the Nagamohan Das committee and also received its report. The BJP is claiming credit only because it is in power now, Congress leaders said.
Former deputy chief minister Dr G Parameshwara, who is looking at getting the SC/ST support for Congress, said, “We apportioned 24 per cent of the budget to SC/STs. This hike in reservation is just hot air.’’
The BJP government’s decision to make contract pourakarmikas permanent too could help the party.
Congress held an important, closed-door meeting a few days ago at working president Satish Jarkiholi’s residence, where they discussed strategies to counter the BJP seat-wise and issue-wise.
From BJP, Chaluvadi Narayanswamy, who spent over 15 years with Congress, has been working on the strategy for the communities. Congress is also aware how they lost some SC/ST seats because JDS tied up with BSP and garnered a large share of the votes. Even stalwart SC Congress leader HC Mahadevappa lost to JDS’ Ashvin Kumar in T Narasipur by a humiliating margin of 45,000 votes.
Congress will look for issues, like the recent incident in Chamarajanagar district where upper caste people washed a mini-tank after a Dalit woman drank from it and the contentious temple entry, to highlight the oppression of Dalits.
Brand guru Harish Bijoor said, “SC/STs represent a massive swing factor of votes and sentiment as they represent 19-23 per cent of the electorate. Once upon a time, this was a Congress vote bank chunk. Not anymore. The Bommai government has taken steps with the hike in reservation. I believe this chunk is fragmented between BJP and Congress now. At the end of the day it is all about grassroots communication of each of the parties. He who communicates best, wins the love of these voters.”