As part of the Samajwadi Party’s effort to reach out to Dalits ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the party chief, Akhilesh Yadav, on Sunday told workers and leaders of Samajwadi Ambedkar Vahini to launch a series of chaupals or small meetings at the booth level across Uttar Pradesh.
Known as ‘Samvidhan Bachao Jan Chaupal’, the meetings will talk about issues of reservation to the Dalit community in the wake of the results of the Bihar caste census.
‘Akhileshji has given his approval to start the meetings. We will cover every booth in the state and focus on areas with a high Dalit population. Among other issues, we will make people aware that the country’s Constitution and the reservation policy are under threat,’ Mithai Lal Bharti, the national president of the SP outfit, said on Sunday.
‘We will soon release the dates and the details of the programme,’ Bharti added.
‘We will go to the people and talk to them about the vision of Dr BR Ambedkar and will tell them that the BJP is against the Bahujan Samaj. We will also talk about the need for the caste census in UP and cite the Bihar caste census results as an example,’ said a party leader, who was present at the meeting on Sunday.
Speaking to the mediapersons after the meeting, Akhilesh said that the BJP has threatened democracy in the country and is trying to change the Constitution framed by Dr BR Ambedkar. ‘Depriving the deprived, backwards and Dalits of their rights, the BJP is eliminating jobs by outsourcing them. BJP is not even in favour of social justice. It does not want a caste census. PDA (Backward, Dalit, Minority) will defeat the BJP-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections,’ said Akhilesh.
The former chief minister also said that the more CBI, ED and IT raids the BJP government will conduct, the more angry the people will be. ‘The BJP is conducting raids to scare people. But no one is afraid in democracy… Inflation and unemployment are at their peak under the BJP government. Now, injustice is also at its peak. More than 100 crore people of the country are angry with BJP,’ the SP chief said.
Akhilesh said that only after the caste census is conducted will everyone get their rights and respect. ‘Everyone will be able to live with respect through caste census. Social justice is not possible without caste census,’ he added.
