Former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa is planning to host a lunch for all the Dalit families that he had visited for breakfast during his pre-election campaign in May.
The lunch, that was to take place in the last week of July, is now going to be held on August 28. The state BJP will throw a lunch for these families at his Dollar Colony residence.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, however, called this a publicity stunt and said that the BJP is taking such an initiative not because they are genuinely worried about Dalits and the poor, but only because they want to win the Dalit votes for the upcoming elections.
The lunch will be organised as a part of its ‘Jana Sampark Abhiyan’, a statewide campaign to mobilise cadre for the Assembly elections, which are slated for April next year. The party, under Yeddyurappa's leadership. has been attempting to win over the Dalit vote bank. During the course of his yatra, he had visited several Dalit homes.
However, his attempt at winning over Dalit hearts has not been without hiccups. In May this year, the former CM was accused of practicing untouchability, where he allegedly ate food ordered from a hotel instead of the meal prepared at the house of a Dalit family in Tumakuru.
According to multiple media reports, a breakfast had been arranged at the house of a Dalit man, who had prepared pulao to serve the leaders. However, Yeddyurappa reportedly ordered idly and vada from a hotel and consumed it.
A man called D Venkatesh from Mandya had filed a complaint against Yeddyurappa, alleging that BJP chief’s refusal to eat the food cooked in a Dalit household amounted to caste discrimination.
Yeddyurappa, however, clarified why he ate hotel food, “The Dalit families have confirmed that they had ordered food from outside as the families could not cater to feed all the leaders on such a short notice. The whole point was having food at the homes of Dalit families, but not where the food was cooked. By casting aspersions on the BJP for not eating food cooked by the Dalit families, the Congress has insulted the entire Dalit community.”
Later, he tweeted photos of himself eating in a Dalit house in Belgavi, where he ate breakfast. He also had lunch at another Dalit colony before addressing a public rally in Chamarajanagar in May.