At an all-party meeting on June 27, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced a Dalit Empowerment Scheme, for the welfare of the community and to alleviate them from poverty. For now, the state government has allocated Rs 1,000 crore for the scheme, and is looking to increase this by another Rs 200 crore. This comes just days after the CM highlighted the subjugation of Dalits in Hinduism and talked about poor social conditions, and said they are converting to Christianity as they are denied respect.
One hundred Dalit families from poor financial backgrounds will be identified in each Assembly segment in the first phase and will be offered an assistance of Rs 10 lakh to take up self-employment projects. While initially the government will spend Rs 1,200 crore for 11,900 families, the government intends to spend Rs 45,000 crore over the next few years towards the scheme.
The Chief Minister’s sudden announcement focusing on the welfare of Dalits — in the wake of popular Backward Class leader and former Health Minister Eatala Rajender joining the BJP — has raised eyebrows about whether KCR’s outreach to Dalits is aimed at making up for lost ground. According to some political observers, BC community members in the state are gravitating towards the BJP, and as a countermeasure, KCR has devised this strategy.
Speaking to TNM, Jilukara Srinivas, leader of Dravida Bahujana Samiti said appeasing Dalits is now political compulsion. Dravida Bahujana Samiti is an organisation working for the social development of Dalits, and Srinivas was one of the key leaders from the Dalit community who participated in the Telangana statehood movement, and had demanded that the state be founded on principles of social justice. At the time, they told KCR that they would support the movement only if the demands were accepted, following which KCR said that the state’s first CM would be a Dalit person.
Srinivas alleges KCR did not tolerate Dalits during the statehood movement as well. “After the state was formed, he understood the social composition. He understood that the BC community is a significant chunk, and as part of the plan he gave power to Munnuru Kapus, Reddys, Mudiraj, Yadavs and Muslims, and these communities rallied behind him. As a result of this, he did not require the support of Dalits,” he said.
He, however, added that the BJP used a similar strategy to obtain the support of the Munnuru Kapus by giving posts to Bandi Sanjay (state BJP president) and D Arvind (Nizamabad MP).
“Another significant community among the BCs is Mudiraj. Previously, the community was with the TRS as Eatala was their representative. But now, because of Eatala being removed from the party, the community is divided — one faction supports the former health minister moving to the BJP. Since two important pillars of the TRS — Munnuru Kapus and Mudirajs — are being shaken, KCR has now reached out to Dalits,” Srinivas added.
Political analyst and former MLC K Nageshwar, however, differed, saying this is not a valid argument. “If he is losing the social base of BCs, wouldn’t KCR reach out to the BCs and placate them with some BC welfare scheme?” he asked.
Nageshwar believes the theory that BCs are gravitating towards the BJP lacks merit since the BJP lost miserably in the recent Nagarjuna Sagar bye-election. “The Dalit Empowerment Scheme is a populist scheme like the Rythu Bandhu, but to say that KCR is losing the support of BCs and hence he took the decision is invalid,” Nageshwar noted.
Palwai Raghavender Reddy, another political analyst, agrees with Nageshwar. He said it is typical of KCR to make unpredictable sudden announcements such as this and catch everyone by surprise. “He has this habit of making such announcements that would dominate media spaces and the narrative in favour of the TRS,” he argued.
However, he agreed that there could have been “some dissidence” from the sections that the scheme is targeting. “I doubt if the BCs are rallying behind the BJP. BC consolidation is not easy. It is too big and too diverse. Such a thing happened during the NTR era when the community was assured of political empowerment,” he said, adding that while it is true that KCR is reaching out to Dalits to counter the BJP, it can’t be the only reason.
“There could be many other factors. Revanth Reddy becoming the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee President also could be a factor. Traditionally Dalits have been supporters of the Congress party, and to dampen the Congress’ enthusiasm, they could have announced the scheme at this juncture,” he pointed out.
In a recent interview with TNM, Revanth Reddy, the newly elected TPCC president, said that KCR’s era is going to end and that is why he is desperately trying every trick in his book.
Responding to the Dalit Empowerment Scheme, Revanth Reddy said, “We have seen a lot of these tricks and drama. In Telangana, out of four crore people, one crore people are from the SC population and this almost constitutes 20%. Out of this entire population, he will be choosing 100 people from each constituency and they will be given 10 lakhs each. This is what he claims as outreach to the Dalit community.”
“KCR had promised a Dalit would be made the Chief Minister. That never happened. He did make a Dalit the Deputy CM, and he was later dismissed. He later promised three acres for landless poor Dalits, and this too remains undelivered. 2 BHKs were promised, he hasn’t delivered on this promise. Today, there are lakhs of loan applications pending with the SC corporation. KCR is a Dalit drohi.”
Amidst these developments, the bye-polls for Huzurabad constituency will be coming up soon, necessitated by Eatala Rajender’s resignation from both the MLA post and the TRS party. Eatala was removed from the TRS cabinet on allegations of land encroachment, and will witness an intense fight between the BJP and the TRS.