Congress drive to connect with UP dalits

It comes only after party VP Rahul Gandhi's month-long Kisan Yatra across the state in Sep, in which he promised them a loan waiver and halving of electricity bills

Keen to win back its earlier Dalit vote in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, the Congress party on Friday said it had launched a massive community outreach programme targeting a million households over the next one month.

This comes only after party vice-president Rahul Gandhi's month-long Kisan Yatra across the state in September, in which he promised them a loan waiver and halving of electricity bills.

Ghulam Nabi Azad, party senior in charge of UP affairs, flagged off the launch in Lucknow. It would see around 200 teams visiting Dalit concentrations in the state.

In September, Rahul Gandhi had lunch with a Dalit family, to send a message to the community. In February, he was at a big Dalit conclave in Lucknow.

Of the 8,500 villages identified under the plan devised by Gandhi aide K Raju, who heads the central party's scheduled caste department, 486 are in Sitapur district, 416 in Hardoi and 322 in Lakhimpur Kheri. Seven districts - Allahabad, Azamgarh, Unnao, Lucknow, Rae Bareli, Bijnor and Barabanki - have more than 200 villages with a substantial dalit population.

Three members from the local area will act as hosts and would facilitate a dialogue between leaders and members of the community, talking about their issues and ways to resolve these. These hosts would become the contact persons of the party in a particular area, ahead of the assembly polls. The inputs received during such interactions would form the basis of the Congress poll manifesto, the party said.

The voter connect would focus on education, security and self-respect of Dalits. The Congress hopes to convince them that both the Bahujan Samaj Party and Bharatiya Janata Party should not be trusted. It will use recent political events across the country as evidence.

The Congress has also said the most backward classes would be given reservation within the 27% quota for Other Backward Classes, if the party is voted to power in UP.