Eyeing revival of fortunes, Cong reaches out to Dalits

Trying to recover from its electoral reverses, Congress plans to reach out to Dalits and other deprived sections in a big way beginning with the 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Dalit icon BR Ambedkar.
Party Vice President Rahul Gandhi's bid today during the rally at Ambedkar's birthplace at Mhow in Madhya Pradesh to project the architect of the Indian Constitution as "not just a leader of Dalits" but as one who also fought injustice of all kinds is part of Congress's plan to promote itself as a champion of the underdog and have-nots.
Following its unprecedented debacle in Lok Sabha polls that left the party with a tally of 44 MPs in the Lower House, Congress has lost power in quick succession in states like Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand.

Before the launch of the party's Ambedkar anniversary celebrations, Gandhi raised pitch on farmers' issues, touching on the contentious land Bill, among others.
It has also held interactions with the fishing community in Kerala, which is unhappy over the issue of the duration of a mandatory fishing ban.
Apart from the symbolism, substantial changes are also underway in Congress to push to the fore leaders from among the Dalit and other under-represented communities.

Citing a number of alleged instances of atrocities against Dalits, Gandhi also touched upon the issue of derecognition of the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle by IIT, Madras as he asserted that the "right of some people are even today snatched only because they belong to a particular community".

Congress's attempt to engage with such communities is significant as the rise of caste-based parties in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh on the plank of social justice more than two decades back sealed the fate of the party in these two states.
While Assembly elections are due in Bihar this year, Uttar Pradesh goes to polls in 2017.
Gandhi is of the view that the non-emergence of a strong Dalit leader in the party was the main reason for the community to look elsewhere for leadership.
He is learnt to have said at an internal meeting that rather than being a case of Dalits drifting away from Congress, the scenario has been one where Congress drifted away from the community in many states.

The manifesto for Dalit empowerment prepared by the party ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls will serve as a guiding principle for future plans, the sources said.