WHILE it has returned to power in Delhi after 27 years with a thumping majority, the BJP can’t claim the same dominance among Dalits in the Capital. While of the 12 Scheduled Caste-reserved seats in the Delhi Assembly, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won eight, in other constituencies too where Dalits form a significant presence, the BJP largely lost. Dalits comprise more than 15% of the electorate in 36 seats of Delhi, or just over half the total. The BJP won 21 of these, eight of them where Dalits numbered over 20% of the population. Only three of its victories came in seats where Dalits number over 25%. In contrast, the AAP won 10 seats where the Dalit population is over 20% and seven where they make up over 25%. In one of the constituencies, Trilokpuri, where Dalits make up more than a quarter of the population, the BJP’s victory margin over the AAP was just 392 votes. In the 2020 Assembly polls when the AAP had won 62 of the 70 seats in Delhi, the BJP had won only one of the 36 seats with a significant Dalit presence, Rohtas Nagar. It retained Rohtas Nagar, where 19.9% of the population is Dalit, in these polls. The AAP had won all the 12 reserved seats last time, which include Bawana, Sultanpur Majra, Mangol Puri, Karol Bagh, Patel Nagar, Madipur, Deoli, Ambedkar Nagar, Trilokpuri, Kondli, Seemapuri, Gokalpur. These constituencies comprise the highest share of Dalits in the population in Delhi as per the Election Commission data – Sultanpur Majra (44%), followed by Karol Bagh (41%), Gokalpur (37%), Mangol Puri (36%), Trilokpuri (32%), Ambedkar Nagar (31%), Seemapuri (31%), Madipur (29%), Kondli (27%), Deoli (27%), Bawana (24%) and Patel Nagar (23%). Besides these 12, constituencies such as Rajinder Nagar (22%), Wazirpur (22%), Tughlakabad (22%), Ballimaran (22%), Nangloi Jat (21%) and Narela (21%) also have significant Dalit populations. In the other 18 constituencies, the Dalits comprise less than 20% of the population. This time, the BJP won the reserved Mangol Puri, Trilokpuri, Madipur and Bawana seats, apart from Wazirpur, Rajinder Nagar, Nangloi Jat and Narela where over 20% of the population is Dalit. All were won by the AAP in 2020. Last time, barring Rohtas Nagar, the eight seats that the BJP won had all come in constituencies where the Dalit population is small – Rohini (6%), Karawal Nagar (8%), Laxmi Nagar (9%), Gandhi Nagar (11%), Badarpur (12%), Vishwas Nagar (13%) and Ghonda (13%). In 2015, the BJP had won Rohini, Vishwas Nagar and Mustafabad (13%), again seats with low Dalit populations. Rohini constituency, which the party has consistently won even amidst AAP sweeps, has the lowest Dalit population for any constituency in the National Capital. In 1993, when the BJP last formed a government in Delhi – its only one till now – winning 49 of 70 seats, it had got eight of the 13 seats then reserved for Dalits. The Dalit vote was believed to have first shifted to the Congress in the Capital, which ruled Delhi from 1998 to 2013, and subsequently to the AAP. In the 1998 polls, when the BJP won 15 seats, not a single of those was a reserved constituency. In 2003, when it improved its performance to 20 seats, two were SC-reserved. In 2008 and 2013 too, its tally in SC-reserved seats remained two each. To shore up its support among the Dalits, particularly after the Lok Sabha results indicated the community had turned away from the BJP, the party had fielded Dalits from two non-reserved constituencies as well this time, apart from the 12 reserved ones. However, its candidates in both these seats – Ballimaran and Matia Mahal – lost to the AAP by significant margins. Ashok Bharti, Chairman of the National Confederation of Dalit Organisations, which conducted a survey among Dalits ahead of the Delhi polls, believes it was largely the AAP government’s schemes which saved the party in Dalit seats. “The schemes were quite popular among Dalit women particularly. Also, since Dalits are a community aspiring educational advancement, improvements in government schools and healthcare were appreciated by them. Arvind Kejriwal was also able to convince voters that he was not part of the anti-Constitutional forces in the country. It has been an issue among Dalits, especially the Jatavs, who are a majority among Dalits in Delhi,” Bharti said, referring to the Opposition’s claims that a dominant Modi government could alter the Constitution or remove reservation. Yogender Chandolia, the BJP MP from North West Delhi, the sole reserved Lok Sabha seat in the Capital, said the BJP’s lack of success in most of the reserved Assembly seats was not for want of effort but a result of decades of anti-SC/ST propaganda against it by the Congress. “It is not like we do not try to build a stronger foundation of support among the city’s Dalit community… we have won four (of the reserved) seats… But it is also true that people from the community seem to feel that the BJP will not work for them due to the negative propaganda by the Congress,” Chandolia said. Elaborating further, he said, “Congress chahti hai yeh lage ki sirf woh SC samaj ki samarthak hai (The Congress wants to convey the impression that it is the only party that is a supporter of the Scheduled Castes)…We had not been able to communicate this completely to the people so far, but after Modi ji came to power, we have made memorials of Ambedkar across the world… The poor (from the community) are not able to understand this completely yet, but we will continue trying.”
