[《BJP lawmaker Yashwant Singh urged PM Modi to enact laws for quotas in promotion, introduce reservation in the private sector and fill the thousands of vacancies in posts reserved for scheduled castes. ... Another Dalit lawmaker from the BJP has joined the chorus of voices questioning accusing the government for failing to deliver on the promises made to the community by the party. Dr Yashwant Singh, the BJP's Lok Sabha member from Nagina in western Uttar Pradesh, is the fifth parliamentarian from the ruling party to be make his reservations about the party's performance be known, the fourth from UP.》
The following is an interesting observation by a friendly one (to Modi) voicing a note of alarm: <<As the caste see-saw shifts yet again, disaffections of anti-incumbency, lack of jobs, rise of a powerful upper-caste chief minister in Uttar Pradesh (the first upper caste in 15 years) have all combined to bring caste back in the equation. The BJP has been quick to realise this, Modi and Shah are speaking. But they have three problems: first, that they do not have any prominent and convincing Dalit voices. Second, while in the past BJP had produced a star-cast of OBC leaders including Modi and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the post-2014 phase has seen the rise of upper castes, notably in large states like Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. And third, they may have left it too late, with their party and intelligence machinery failing to pick up the rising Dalit frustration early enough.>> (Ref.: 'Cracks appear in Modi-Shah’s Hindu consensus as caste begins to overpower religion again' by Shekhar Gupta at < https://theprint.in/national-interest/cracks-modi-shahs-hindu-consensus-caste-overpower-religion/47705/ >.) The observation above, of course, deliberately glosses over the fact that selection of Chief Ministers for UP, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh from the Hindu upper castes, like jettisoning of the Muslims, is no mere accident. Nor is the spike in violence against Dalits or the assault on the livelihood of a significant section in the name of "Gau Raksha" (cow protection). It's how the core ideology of the BJP/RSS expresses itself, if not under considerable contrary pressure. And, mere tokenism, beyond which the regime can hardly traverse, is unlikely to help.] https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/not-one-promise-kept-another-ruling-partys-dalit-lawmaker-writes-to-pm-1834184 "Not One Promise Kept": Another Ruling Party's Dalit Lawmaker Writes To PM BJP lawmaker Yashwant Singh urged PM Modi to enact laws for quotas in promotion, introduce reservation in the private sector and fill the thousands of vacancies in posts reserved for scheduled castes. All India | Reported by Akhilesh Sharma, Edited by Aloke Tikku | Updated: April 08, 2018 07:30 IST 'Not One Promise Kept': Another Ruling Party's Dalit Lawmaker Writes To PM Click to Play Dr Yashwant Singh is the fifth lawmaker from the BJP to ask centre to do more for Dalits NEW DELHI: Another Dalit lawmaker from the BJP has joined the chorus of voices questioning accusing the government for failing to deliver on the promises made to the community by the party. Dr Yashwant Singh, the BJP's Lok Sabha member from Nagina in western Uttar Pradesh, is the fifth parliamentarian from the ruling party to be make his reservations about the party's performance be known, the fourth from UP. In his letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week, Dr Yashwant Singh blamed the centre for not delivering on even one promise made to the Dalits in the last four years, adding that it was becoming difficult for the party lawmakers to respond to the community who were being harassed. He urged PM Modi to take corrective steps and enact laws for quotas in promotion, introduce reservation in the private sector and fill the thousands of vacancies in posts reserved for scheduled castes. The lawmaker's letter to PM Modi is seen as an indicator of the growing perception that the Dalit community, which had started responding to overtures from the BJP in recent years, was fast getting disillusioned. That message appears to have reached the government, going by how PM Modi and BJP president Amit Shah have used every opportunity over the past week to reaffirm the party's commitment to Dalits. At Friday's BJP parliamentary party meeting, all lawmakers were also told to reach out to the community in their respective constituencies and even spend two nights in Dalit-dominated villages closer to Ambedkar Jayanti observed later this month. Amit Shah has already re-started the practice of having lunch at a Dalit family during his two-day visit to Odisha. Many in the BJP point how most of those speaking out haven't been in the party for very long and were inducted in the years leading to the 2014 elections. Like Dr Yashwant Singh who had been a minister in Mayawati government between 2007 and 2012 and joined the BJP before the Lok Sabha election. Chhote Lal Kharwar, the Lok Sabha member from Robertsganj who complained about Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, had joined the BJP just in 2014. Savitri Bai Phule, who has been one of the more vocal parliamentarians of the five, started her career with the Bahujan Samaj Party, or BSP. She joined the BJP ahead of the 2012 assembly polls and won the Bahraich seat in 2014 35 COMMENTSAshok Kumar Dohrey, the lawmaker from Etawah, had dumped the BSP and joined the BJP in 2013. Udit Raj was a freelance Dalit leader trying to make his mark in Dalit politics after quitting the bureaucracy. He got a BJP ticket from Delhi in 2014 and won. There already has been some unease in the BJP over the growing bonhomie between Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav's parties, the two arch rivals who partnered in the recent Lok Sabha by elections to defeat the BJP even in Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's home turf, Gorakhpur. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
