Dalit assertiveness finds a BJP platform

The way the party is co-opting the Dalits shows it is trying to re-position itself

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NDA’s presidential nominee Ram Nath Kovind with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, senior party leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and other NDA leaders before filing his nomination papers at Parliament in New Delhi. Photo: PTI

Radhika Ramaseshan New Delhi

Last Updated : Jul 03 2017 | 4:45 AM IST

There is no one prism through which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) views Dalits, a community it has wooed from the ’90s, after cottoning on to the electoral potential and loyalty to a party they choose. It’s a BC-AD kind of situation, in which the benchmark for judging the BJP’s worth for a Dalit varies individually, depending on the length of the person’s association and, importantly, if he is of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) vintage or a born-again. This is perhaps why the nomination of Ram Nath Kovind, a Dalit from a penurious home, invited varying responses in the BJP,