“Nitish Kumar Has Our Sympathy, Not Vote,” Say Bihar Dalits, Blame BJP

Patna:

The road to re-election for the BJP in 2019 doesn’t just lead through Uttar Pradesh but Bihar too. But five years since the party won 22 out of the state’s 40 seats in the national polls, its relationship status with the group that powered its victory – the 16 per cent Dalits – is "complicated". The community’s disenchantment with the BJP threatens to singe allies including Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

With less than a year to go for the next general election, there has been a tectonic shift in what Dalits feel since they broke with traditional loyalties and caste diktats and even turned their backs on their benefactor-in-chief, Janata Dal United supremo Nitish Kumar, to vote for Narendra Modi’s promise of achhe din (good times) in 2014.

The BJP’s allies, the Ram Vilas Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and the Upendra Kushwaha-led Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), both with a mainly Dalit and most backward vote-base, won another nine seats. Nitish Kumar’s party, contesting alone after its split with the BJP, won just two.

Nitish Kumar last year dumped Lalu Yadav and the Congress to re-embrace the BJP.

BJP is now the number one enemy of Dalits in Bihar, we will not vote for it. Our people are not against Nitish Kumar. But the JD(U) will lose out because of the anti-Dalit mind-set of its alliance partner. Every vote for Nitish-ji will help the BJP, which is no longer acceptable to us, and this is the message we are taking to every household in the state before the 2019 election. That our sympathy is with the Chief Minister, but not our vote," Amar Azad, Bihar president of the Bhim Army told NDTV in Patna.

Source : NDTV