Lucknow: BSP founder Kanshi Ram will return to the political arc-lights on his 92nd birth anniversary on March 15, as political parties vie to consolidate the Dalit electorate in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the assembly elections due early next year.BSP chief Mayawati has given a ‘Lucknow Chalo’ call to party functionaries in what is seen as a bid to put up a massive show of strength in the state capital and consolidate Dalit voters, which accounts for 21% of the total electorate in UP.Party sources said that Mayawati is expected to lay out a broader party strategy for the 2027 assembly elections. A similar event is proposed to be organised in Noida to amplify the impact of the party’s exercise.Experts said that a large gathering would signal that the poll machinery of BSP, which faced organisational erosion in recent years, was still active. Sources said that BSP sought to remind Dalits that Kanshi Ram’s legacy belongs to the party he founded.Likewise, the BJP has decided to pay tribute to Kanshi Ram across the state. Sources said that the party has asked its SC morcha to collaborate with social organisations to ratchet up the fervour around Kanshi Ram’s legacy. A prominent event is proposed to be organised in Ghaziabad under the aegis of a social organisation named after Ramabai Ambedkar, the wife of Dalit icon BR Ambedkar.The BJP has strategically chosen the location in the west UP region, which has a sizeable number of Jatav voters, the key electoral bloc of BSP.“We seek to rise above party lines to pay tribute to a leader who was a voice of the Dalit,” asserted UP BJP SC morcha president Ram Chandra Kannojia. The programme is expected to be attended by a host of senior leaders, including BJP national SC Morcha President Lal Singh Arya and some BJP district chiefs from the region.Experts said that the approach was consistent with the BJP’s broader strategy of symbolic recognition of Dalit leaders such as BR Ambedkar, while simultaneously building grassroots networks among non-Jatav and a section of Jatav voters.Similarly, the Samajwadi Party plans to observe the day as ‘PDA Diwas’. The celebration is seen as a strategic move to consolidate support from Dalits, backwards, and minorities ahead of the 2027 UP assembly elections. Sources said that Babasaheb Ambedkar Vahini, the SC wing of the Samajwadi Party, has been tasked to manage the events.The SP chief, Akhilesh Yadav, sources said, has directed all party functionaries, including MPs, MLAs, and district presidents, to participate and ensure the presence of the general public from the PDA sections.By involving the party’s SC wing, the SP, sources said, aimed to directly engage Dalit voters rather than rely solely on its conventional OBC-Muslim arithmetic.The move attains significance amid SP’s aggressive attempts to heighten its tried and trusted PDA narrative, which is said to have dented the BJP, pulling its tally from 62 to 33 in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.SP’s ally Congress, too, plans to observe the day as ‘Samajik Parivartan Diwas’, marking a significant strategic shift in its strategy to reclaim the Dalit votes. Analysts said that the Congress aims to capitalise on the weakening of the BSP to regain the support it historically held before the 1980s.
