Rohtak/Ambala/Sonipat: In Haryana’s Kalanaur, three farmers from the state’s Dalit community sit together in the afternoon sun near their fields, shuffling a deck of cards. Their farm lies less than 15 km from Rohtak, stronghold of former chief minister and Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
As the state gears up for assembly elections on 5 October, and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) looks to return for a third term, the mood among farmers in Kalanaur is one of anger.
“The Congress has promised plots for Dalits and announced it will double pension,” Vedpal, a Dalit farmer from Kalanaur constituency, one of 17 seats in the 90-member assembly reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC), told ThePrint.
“Our crop is not getting MSP. Why will we vote for the BJP? They have done nothing for the poor except give free rations. We are not voting for the BJP this time,” he added.
Vedpal’s friend Krishna, also a farmer, nodded in agreement.
Dalit anger against the BJP may be mounting, but the BJP isn’t giving up without a fight. As the polls draw closer, the ruling party is trying to consolidate the crucial Dalit vote, using reports of infighting in the Congress after prominent Dalit leader Kumari Selja stayed away from election campaign, and by raking up decades-old cases of violence against Dalits.
Analysts suggest that a decade of anti-incumbency, ongoing farmers’ protests, rising unemployment, the Agniveer protests, and the Congress’s constitutional change campaign have collectively strengthened Dalit support for the party.
In Kalanaur, the BJP has fielded Renu Dabala—a mayor during a previous Congress government—against three-time sitting Congress MLA, Shakuntala Khatak.
Khatak is banking on Hooda’s support while Dabala is hoping the anti-incumbency wave against the Congress MLA will help her win her first assembly election.
About 150 km away, in the BJP bastion of Mullana, another SC reserved constituency, in Ambala district, the mood is no different.
At a small tea shop in Mullana’s Khanpur village, three farmers sit around, sipping tea.
“We have seen 10 years of a BJP government. Except for rations, nothing has happened,” said Baljinder, who belongs to the Valmiki community. “What have they done for farmers? Borders were closed during the farmers’ protest and the border is still closed. The government says they are not farmers but political activists. Do you think farmers have so much time or that anybody has that much time to stay at the border? The BJP claims it has given MSP on 24 crops, but the government isn’t purchasing more than two crops from the mandi.”
All three had voted for Narendra Modi in 2014 and 2019, but this year they voted for the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections and will vote for the party in the assembly elections too.
Ambala was considered a BJP stronghold with Rattan Lal Kataria, the party’s Dalit face in Haryana, representing it in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Following his death in 2023, his wife, Banto Kataria, ran for the SC-reserved seat in this year’s parliamentary elections. However, she lost to the Congress despite a sympathy wave in her favour.
In Mullana, the BJP has fielded Santosh Chauhan Sarwan, who was first elected in 1991 on a Congress ticket and then re-elected on a BJP ticket in 2014.
Her opponent is Pooja Choudhary, wife of Varun Choudhary, a Congress Lok Sabha MP. Varun was elected from Mullana in the 2019 assembly polls.
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Consolidating the Dalit vote
Haryana politics is usually seen through a prism of consolidation of Jat and non-Jat castes.
The Jats—the dominant caste group in Haryana accounting for 25 percent of the state’s population—form the backbone of support for the Congress, particularly for the Hooda faction.
On the other hand, Other Backward Classes (OBC) constituting 33 percent of the population tend to support the BJP.
But one of the deciding factors in this election is the Dalit population, who make up 21 percent of the state’s population.
It is crucial for both the BJP and the Congress after the unity between the Jats and Dalits led to a surge in Congress support and the loss of five Lok Sabha seats for the BJP in the Lok Sabha election.
Not surprisingly, the BJP is going all out to grab this critical demographic from the Congress by using reports of internal conflicts within the opposition party, especially between Hooda and Selja, the latter a prominent Dalit figure who is said to be disgruntled by the seat distribution.
Murmurs of dissent in the Congress rose when Selja was absent from a function on 18 September to release the Congress manifesto for the state polls and stayed away from the campaign.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a scathing attack on the Congress at a rally in Sonepat, asking Dalits to be wary of the Congress.
“When Hoodaji was the chief minister here, there was no year when injustice was not done to Dalits. Injustice was done to many Dalits. Everyone knew that the Congress ill-treated Dalits,” Modi said.
“Today, the Dalit community of Haryana is once again watching the Congress drama inside Haryana. The Congress has always kept the poor and backward people out of development,” he added.
Home Minister Amit Shah also slammed the Congress at a rally this week, saying the party was “anti-Dalit”.
“The Congress always humiliated its Dalit leaders, whether it’s sister Kumari Selja or Ashok Tanwar. The BJP is the only party which will protect the rights of Dalits and reservations will not end while the BJP is in power,” Shah told a rally at Tohana.
The BJP pushed the narrative of Selja’s humiliation on social media after a supporter of the Congress-nominated candidate Jassi Petwar, considered close to Congress MP Deepender Hooda, made a casteist remark about her.
Former CM Bhupinder Hooda had to issue a strong condemnation to stop the damage.
Union minister Manohar Lal Khattar even made an offer to Selja to join the BJP at a rally in Gharaunda. “There is much infighting in Congress. Our sister Selja is sitting at home. Many people upset with them were brought into the BJP. We are ready with that offer again, and if she comes, we are ready to induct her,” he said.
Selja, later, dismissed reports of dissent in the party while rejecting Khattar’s offer.
“I have had a longer political life than many of the BJP leaders who are commenting today. Don’t give me advice, I know my way and my party knows my way,” Selja said. “We will move forward strongly, whether it is BJP or anyone else… I know what kind of statements are being made. Illusions are being spread that Selja is going to this party.”
Past injustices
As the BJP seeks to win over Dalits in the run-up to the polls, Shah also reminded people of the attacks on Dalits in Gohana in 2005 and Mirchipur in 2010 during Hooda’s tenure.
In 2005, 50 Dalit homes were burnt in a case of inter-caste violence in Gohana in Sonipat after a Dalit in the village was suspected of being involved in the murder of an upper-caste man.
More than a dozen homes belonging to Dalits were torched in Mirchipur in 2010. A teenage girl and a 70-year-old man were charred to death in the incident.
Locals say raking up past attacks won’t resonate with voters as only the older generation remembered the violence while the new generation had little knowledge of the attacks.
“Two decades have passed and things have changed now,” said Deepak Ram, a member of the Dalit community.
“The backward caste will vote for Hooda. Dus saal bahut hote hain (ten years is a long time),” he added.
Mounting anger
The anger against the ruling party, it seems, runs deep in Haryana.
Voters are unhappy about the unresolved farmer’s protest, the Agniveer scheme and widespread unemployment in the state. Dalit anger was aggravated over Khattar government’s Pariwar Pahchan Patra (PPP) scheme as most disadvantaged groups had to make many rounds to correct details on the portal.
Meanwhile, support for the state’s main opposition Congress party remains strong, particularly among kisans, jawans and pehelwans.
The erosion of the BJP’s Dalit support base in Haryana isn’t sudden. The BJP’s vote share in the community has been declining steadily. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP’s support dropped from 51 percent in 2019 to 24 percent.
Meanwhile, the Congress has seen a steady rise. The INDIA bloc secured 68 percent of the Dalit vote in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
This time, two Jat parties—the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD)—are also aiming to secure the Dalit vote bank by forming alliances with Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad’s Aazad Samaj Party (ASP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
Other figures also point to dwindling support for the BJP.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won all 10 seats. In 2024, they lost five seats, including two reserved seats, Sirsa and Ambala.
The Congress party’s Selja won from Sirsa and in Ambala, the BJP’s Ratan Lal Kataria’s wife lost to the Congress candidate, Varun Choudhary.
The BJP’s lead in 17 reserved constituencies declined to four in the 2024 Lok Sabha election from 15 in 2019. The Congress increased its lead to 11 from just two the last time.
In the assembly elections in 2019, the BJP won just five reserved SC seats, down from 9 in 2014, while the Congress won seven SC seats and the JJP four.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, across 47 assembly segments with an SC population of more than 20 percent, the BJP’s lead reduced to 18 from 44 in 2019, while the Congress lead surged from just two seats in 2019 to 25.
Wooing the Deprived Scheduled Castes
After the setback in the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP government, under Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, initiated efforts to win over the Dalit and backward communities.
The CM asked the Social Justice Department to release pending post-matric scholarship amounts to SC students from the previous year.
The BJP is making all efforts to gain the support of Deprived Scheduled Caste (DSC). Nine of the 17 tickets it has given to Dalits are from the DSC group.
Saini not only increased the creamy layer criteria from 6 lakh to 8 lakh to consolidate the OBC vote bank, but also announced the acceptance of the Haryana SC Commission’s recommendation on the sub-classification of SCs for reservation in government jobs to satisfy the DSC group.
This move comes as the BJP is being pushed to bring sub-categorisation in SC reservations.
In Haryana, Dalits are divided into two groups: the DSCs and the empowered group.
The DSC—which includes 36 categories such as the Valmikis, Bazigars, Sansis, Dehas, Dhanaks and Saperas—constitutes 11 percent of the state’s Dalit population and is a support group for the BJP.
The empowered group of Dalits, or Block B, led by Chamars—which make up 9.7 percent of the Dalit population—typically supports the Congress.
On Monday, the Haryana BJP organisational general Secretary Phanindra Nath Sarma met Dalit mahapanchayat leader and the president of the panchayat to get the support of the DSC community.
This Dalit group held a Mahapanchayat last week in Jind to press for its demands.
The BJP, though, remains in danger of losing the Dalit vote.
Devi Dass Valmiki, the president of the Dalit Mahapanchayat, told The Print, “During Hooda and Selja’s regime, the court quashed the 1994 notification dividing the DSC and Dalit B group. For the past 10 years, the BJP government has been urging our people to chant Bharat Mata Ki Jai and Gau Mata Ki Jai, but has not addressed solutions for the empowerment of the most backward Dalit group.”
“When the Supreme Court suggested bringing sub-categorisation into the Dalit community, why is the government sitting on it? In 2020, when the Haryana government brought quotas within quotas for educational institutes, they should have implemented it for government jobs as well,” he added.
The BJP is not only banking on Nayab Singh Saini’s recent efforts to appease the Dalit community, but is also reminding people of the Hooda government’s failure to give transparent employment to the less disadvantaged Dalit community.
“During the Congress Hooda government, all employment happened without transparency, and most of the backward caste did not get employment at that time. The BJP has made the entire system transparent, and now employment letters reach the applicant’s home,” said former BJP state president Om Prakash Dhankar.
But Dalit voters are not easy to win over.
“The Modi wave is not working. The BJP has no pan-state leader and 10 years of anti-incumbency has created the perception of the BJP being anti-farmer and anti-Dalit,” Punjab University professor Ashutosh Kumar told ThePrint.
“Farmers, wrestlers, and disadvantaged groups have been affected by these protests. The BJP is not able to contain the damage of this perception in the Lok Sabha, and it could go against them in the assembly too.”
The BJP is hoping that a third front alliance of the BSP, INLD and JJP can help divide the Congress’s Dalit vote bank. The BSP has fielded over 30 candidates in Haryana in alliance with the INLD.
With Uttar Pradesh Dalit leader Mayawati campaigning in Haryana, the BJP is optimistic that this alliance will dent the Congress’s Dalit vote.
“The BSP has its own cadre in many constituencies. In 2019, the BJP got 30,000-40,000 votes in a few seats. If this is added to the INLD and JJP, they can damage the Congress in many places,” said BJP Ambala district president Rajesh Batoura.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)