BJP’s addition of Dalits seen as bid to make inroads into VCK votes

Chennai

“Except BJP no other party had appointed a person from Arunthathiyar community as its state president. BJP is functioning with the principles of social harmony and social justice and due to its activities, a large number of Dalits were attracted towards the party. A proof of this will be available in 2021 polls”, BJP state secretary K Srinivasan, told DT Next.

Like in other states, BJP in Tamil Nadu had been in alliance with Puthiya Tamilagam, which primarily represents the Dalits in southern districts. However, the party could not garner the support of Dalits in northern Tamil Nadu, which is evident from the recent election results.

Though BJP’s vote share has increased from 2.86 pc in 2016 assembly elections to 3.7 pc in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party could not garner any seat nor could not get the vote share of Dalits in Tamil Nadu. Meanwhile, VCK too had gained votes from 0.8 percentage in 2016 state assembly election to 1.51 percentage in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

After Murugan, former DMK MLA V P Duraisamy, a Dalit leader, was appointed vice president of the state unit to strengthen the party’ aspirations in Tamil Nadu.

However, political commentators claim that BJP will not be able to garner the Dalit votes. “Just because Murugan has been appointed as the state president it does not mean that BJP will be able to grab the vote share of VCK or will get Dalit votes in Tamil Nadu. BJP is a party that does not believe in social justice as the recent incident of reservation for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) is the classic example”, said political commentator Punitha Pandian, who is also the Editor of Dalit Murasu magazine.