BJP to Congress, key players step up jostling for Dalit vote amid Ambedkarite parties’ decline

“The rise of Ambedkar to the status of an icon and the repeated talk of caste, reservations and the Constitution across the political spectrum is a result of Ambedkar’s legacy being thrown open, as parties like the BSP that claimed his legacy are on the decline, with there being very little possibility of their revival,” said a BJP leader who did not want to be named. “The BSP’s decline was caused by the dilution of its ideology so as to reach wider sections of voters, something that made Dalit voters shed their enthusiasm for the party, leading to its vote bank becoming open for other parties to tap.”

In the case of the Mayawati-led BSP, the numbers speak for themselves. In the 2022 UP Assembly elections, the BSP won just one of 403 seats with a 12.88% vote share. In the 2017 polls, the party won 19 seats and secured 22.4% of the votes. In 2012, it won 80 seats and secured 25.9% votes. In 2007, however, the party had clinched a majority by bagging 206 seats with a 30.4% vote share.

The BSP’s decline is visible in the Lok Sabha elections too. The party drew a blank in UP out of 80 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and garnered just 9.39% votes, despite caste, reservations and the Constitution being major electoral issues. In 2019, in alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), the BSP won 10 seats with a 19.4% vote share. In 2014, the party contested alone and failed to open its account but secured 19.8% votes – 10 percentage points more than its share in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. In 2009, the BSP had won 20 seats with a 27.4% vote share, and in 2004 it won 19 seats with 24.7% votes.

It is the BSP’s consistent slide that has led to other parties sharpening their focus on Ambedkar, caste and quota in order to woo Dalits, whose sizeable section now seems to be unencumbered by any political loyalties.

While emerging Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad could win his own seat in the last year’s Lok Sabha elections from UP’s Nagina, he still may be far from building a party that could be a serious contender for power.

The Congress, which has floundered in regaining its upper caste vote base in North India – as also Muslim votes in states like UP and Bihar – has embraced caste as an issue, calling for a caste census, promising to increase the quantum of reservation beyond 50%, and accusing the BJP of allegedly trying to change the Constitution and end reservation.

The BJP dispensation, which has also constantly sought to give more representation to the leaders belonging to the SCs, STs and OBCs, has been developing the “Panch Teerths” of Ambedkar. It has also accused the Nehru-Gandhi family of having “insulted” Ambedkar and denied him his due after his demise, even alleging that the Congress wanted to transfer a part of the quota of the SCs, STs and OBCs to Muslims.

Significantly, in its current PDA – “Pichde (backward classes or OBCs), Dalits, Alpasankhyak (minorities)” – outreach in UP, the SP’s pitch is also largely on propagating the ideas of Ambedkar and “saving the Constitution”, with the party accusing Union Home Minister Amit Shah of having “insulted” Ambedkar in a remark made in the Rajya Sabha during the winter session.

This is a significant shift in the approach of the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP, whose government in UP in 2012 had allegedly put the Ambedkar villages – which the Mayawati government was earlier seeking to develop – on the backburner, while sanctioning funds for the Lohia Gram Vikas programme. However, looking at the opening of the Dalit votes in the face of the BSP’s rapid slide, the SP has made a clear shift towards celebrating Ambedkar and his legacy.

The Ambedkarite parties have seen their fortunes dip in other states too. In the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly polls, the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) headed by Prakash Ambedkar, grandson of Ambedkar, contested 200 of the 288 seats, but failed to open its account. Its vote share was so low that it was included in the “others” category by the Election Commission (EC). In contrast, the VBA, despite not winning a seat, had secured 4.6% of the votes in the 2019 Assembly elections, coming second in 10 constituencies.

The RPI (A) headed by Ramdas Athawale, the LJP (Ram Vilas) of Chirag Paswan and HAM (S) of Jitan Ram Manjhi are the BJP-led NDA’s constituents, and their successes in a few seats in their states are credited more to the NDA factor rather than their own vote banks.