When BSP founder Kanshi Ram contested his maiden Lok Sabha polls from the rural constituency of Janjgir in 1984 in undivided Madhya Pradesh,he set in motion a new era of political empowerment for Dalits. But 25 years later,even as Mayawati nurses prime ministerial ambitions,the BSP is still struggling to make a dent in the bipolar politics of its founders own turf,now in Chhattisgarh. The Janjgir-Champa constituency,which was reserved for SCs during the delimitation exercise,will see BSP state president Dauram Ratnakar taking on sitting Congress legislator Dr Shiv Deheria,and the BJPs Kamla Patle. The majority of the electorate of 15,19767are OBCs,27 per cent are SCs. While there are nearly two lakh tribals,the minority of upper castes do wield considerable power. Kanshi Rams Dalit activism took off in the 1980s during the days of his organisations,DS4 and BAMSEF,which had a strong presence in public sector undertakings including Bharat Aluminium Company Limited (BALCO),National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL).While studying in college,I went to Delhi to attend a convention of BAMSEF,along with some of employees of PSUs,who invited Kanshi Ram to visit the region, Dauram Ratnakar,told The Indian Express. Later,Kanshi Ram went to Chind village to attend the famous Ram Nami Mel,a religious convention of followers of the Ram Nami movement. This community of Dalits would tattoo Ram all over their bodies in an attempt to gain respectability as a religious group in a caste-ridden society. Kanshi Rams frequent visits to the region and interactions with youngsters of this Dalit community raised their awareness. It slowly brought about a change. This practice of tattooing has almost stopped now, says Ratnakar. Immediately after the formation of the BSP,Kanshi Ram filed his nomination to contest for the Janjgir-Lok Sabha seat and Ratnakar,then just 25,was asked to contest from neighbouring Sarangarh (SC) constituency in the 1984 polls. During the poll campaign,the BSP founder travelled from village to village on a bicycle,and though he polled 32,000 votes and lost the election from the traditional Congress bastion,it helped the party to create a base here. But this influence did not spread much over the years. BSP supporters feel that this could be because of the prevailing social distance between Scheduled Caste communities and OBCs and even between SCs and Scheduled Tribes in the region. Unlike in Uttar Pradesh,there are few Muslim voters here to work out a winning combination. But some locals say this distance is slowly being bridged. The OBC communities are coming closer to the BSP,which is no longer seen as a party of only Dalits, says Rahul,a first-time voter in Barbatta,the village of the BSP candidate. Dauram Ratnakar,who had polled 34,000 votes in the 1984 polls,had contested all the Assembly and parliamentary elections since then and had won Pamgarh-SC assembly seat thrice in undivided Madhya Pradesh. After the formation of Chhattisgarh,he unsuccessfully contested the 2003 Assembly and 2004 Lok Sabha polls and opted against contesting the November 2008 Assembly polls in which the BSP bagged Pamgarh and Akaltara seats out of the total of eight Assembly segments of the Lok Sabha constituency. The Congress had won four Assembly segments,while the BJP won two seats. Sensing its winning prospects now,the BSP is sparing no effort in canvassing support. Its leaders from Uttar Pradesh are personally supervising the campaign,while party supremo Mayawati has also addressed an impressive election meeting. Congress candidate Shiv Deheria,known as a staunch supporter of former chief minister Ajit Jogi,came as a consensus candidate of all groups within the Congress. But he facing some heat after BSP and BJP supporters asserted that Janjgir need a representative from the same district and not from Bhilaigarh (SC) segment in neighbouring Raipur. Meanwhile,Janjgir-Champa zilla panchayat president and BJP nominee Kamla Patle,a new face in electoral politics,hopes to win the seat on the basis of good work done by the BJP Government,but she has yet to make an impact in the sprawling constituency. Though all the three parties agree that the outcome of this triangular fight is unpredictable,they acknowledge that the BSP has a good chance at success. Its not that this rural constituency is backward. More than 70 per cent of land in Janjgir-Champa is irrigated and the literacy rate,particularly among females,is remarkably high. A large number of members of three-tier panchayat raj bodies are graduates or post-graduates. With the availability of coal in neighbouring Korba and Raigarh districts and water in abundance in Janjgir,the state government has signed MoUs with a number of companies for setting up thermal power plants. If all the MOUs are translated into reality,Janjgir-Champa district alone will be able to generate 7,000 MW of electricity by 2012,making it a power hub of the country, a senior state government official said.
