11 hours Ago By Ambika Pandit
NEW DELHI: Admitting that Congress did not protect the interests of Dalits and the backwards the way it should have after the 1990s, Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said if the party had retained the the confidence of the marginalised communities, RSS would have never been able to "come to power". "I have to say in past 10-15 years what Congress should have done it did not do. If Congress maintained confidence of Dalits, backward classes and most backward, RSS would have never been able to come to power," Rahul said, while addressing a meet of Dalit influencers under the banner of the 'Vanchit Samaj: Dasha aur Disha' programme in poll-bound Delhi.
Rahul slammed AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and PM Narendra Modi by calling them "anti- reservation and anti-Dalit". Kejriwal is a sophisticated version of Modi, he said while he likened Modi with late Cuban leader Fidel Castro who ruled with an iron fist. Importantly, the period when, according to Rahul, OBCs and Dalits started drifting away from Congress, coincides with the decade-long spell when the Gandhis were not at the helm of the party - a fact that someone in the audience focused on by shouting "Narasimha Rao.
Rao was the PM during 1991-1996". "During PM Indira Gandhi's time full confidence was maintained - Dalits, tribals, minorities and most backwards knew that she will be go all out to fight for them. But after the 1990s there were shortcomings and it is a reality that Congress will have to accept," he said and asserted his party is "truly interested in forming a bond" with them.
While Congress's loss of appeal among OBCs and Dalits, especially in the north of India, is a fact, political analysts may differ with Rahul as to when they got alienated from Congress. Many hold that erosion of support among the numerically preponderant constituencies started much earlier and can definitely be traced to the 60s when dominant OBCs left Congress because they found it to be dominated by upper castes. They moved towards parties where they were represented in leadership positions and which had affinity with their demands for quotas.
Indira Gandhi's traumatic assassination masked and retarded the process but may not have stanched it. It renewed and gathered steam in the 90s, with Rajiv Gandhi's aggressive opposition to caste quotas in the wake of the implementation of the Mandal Commission report proving to be a new propellant. What started with OBCs also soon became the trend with Dalits; with BSP under Kanshi Ram and Mayawati taking away a huge part of Congress's support among Dalits.
Calling for an "internal revolution" within Congress by making more room for Dalits and the backwards, he said once the "original base of Congress is back, BJP and RSS would have to run away". "Problem is that there is no unity among us. We have to work on unity and take everyone along.
..it will take a few years.
..," Rahul said.
.
