They may form the second largest vote bank in Haryana, but the Scheduled Caste communities in the State remain divided about their political choices. Over the last decade and a half, there has been a progressive fragmentation of SC votes, especially with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) being in a weak wicket in the State and the entry of new players, but the Bhim Army’s Chandra Shekhar Azad is now hoping to fill the vacuum in Dalit leadership.
SC communities comprise around 20% of the State’s total population as per the 2011 census. They make up the second largest chunk of the electorate after the Jats, who are the single largest caste in the State with around a quarter of the total populace.
An analysis of the number of reserved SC seats won by various political parties over the past three Assembly elections in Haryana, however, suggests that the community’s votes have scattered further with each election.
BJP’s big bang in 2014
Of the 17 Assembly segments reserved for SCs in Haryana, the Indian National Lok Dal (along with its ally, the Shiromani Akali Dal), and the Congress held almost equal shares, winning nine and eight Assembly segments respectively in the 2009 polls. However, the Bharatiya Janata Party emerged on the State’s political landscape with a bang in 2014, cornering nine of these SC-reserved seats alone. The Congress and the INLD had to content themselves with just four seats each.
“Despite their Scheduled Caste MLAs, both the INLD and the Congress don’t have any mass leaders belonging to the community. The Congress choosing Bhupinder Singh Hooda over Kumari Selja as Chief Minister in 2009 also alienated the SC voters to some extent, and the community, swayed by the ‘Modi wave’, shifted to the BJP in a big way in 2014,” says advocate Bajrang Indal, who had contested the 2019 Assembly polls as the BSP’s Nalwa candidate, and is now the Azad Samaj Party’s Hisar president.
JJP further fragments votes
In the 2019 polls, the SC seats in the Haryana Assembly were distributed more uniformly among the various political parties indicating further fragmentation of the community’s vote. While the BJP’s seats reduced from nine to five, the Congress’ share went up from four to seven. The Jannayak Janta Party — which was formed in 2018 after the INLD split — cornered four seats, snatching two from the BJP. Another BJP-held seat in Nilokheri went to an Independent.
Former BSP secretary Ramesh Kumar, who joined the INLD before the 2019 Assembly polls, said that the 1994 bifurcation of the Scheduled Caste quota into two categories by the then-Congress government, though later quashed by the court, had divided the community.
Now the BJP too has provided for a “quota within quota” for the SCs in the State’s higher educational institutions, with the creation of a new group, called the “Deprived Scheduled Castes”, comprising 36 communities such as Valmiki, Bazigar and Dhanak with an eye on the large vote bank. This move could cause a further scattering of the votes. “Also, the State never had a charismatic Scheduled Caste leader to bring the community together,” added Mr. Kumar.
BSP decline
The BSP — which traditionally represents the Scheduled Castes — has failed to find a foothold in Haryana’s politics, too, which has been among the reasons for the community’s vote remaining scattered. Though the BSP polled around 15% votes in the Lok Sabha election in Haryana in 2009, it failed to make any mark in the Vidhan Sabha polls, winning just one seat each in 2009 and 2014, each with a vote share of about 5%. In 2019, the party’s vote share in the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections in Haryana stood at just 3.65% and 4.21% respectively, without winning a single seat. The BSP’s track record of frequently forging and breaking alliances with various other parties in the State, the indifferent attitude of the party’s top leadership, and the lack of strong State leaders were some of the reasons for the party’s dismal performance in the elections.
The community’s leaders in different political parties believe that the SC vote will scatter further with the entry of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) into the State’s politics. “Among the prominent SC faces, former Congress State president Ashok Tanwar, now a State AAP leader, remains popular in the community for being ‘accessible’ and ‘polite’. It will work to AAP’s advantage to win over SC votes in the State and cause further division of community’s votes,” Mr. Kumar said.
Emerging Dalit icon
Mr. Indal, however, said that the Bhim Army’s chief Chandra Shekhar Azad was emerging as a new Dalit icon with the decline of the BSP nationally, adding that the community in Haryana could be drawn to him in a big way if his Azad Samaj Party (ASP) manages to put up a good show in the upcoming Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh elections.
Mr. Azad has been making frequent visits to Haryana with an eye on this huge vote bank without any strong leadership. He was also present at the recent INLD rally in Kaithal to mark the birth anniversary of Chaudhary Devi Lal. “The party has State, district and village level units in place in Haryana, and aims to bring most of the SC vote under its umbrella,” Mr. Indal said.
