BackWith eye on Uttar Pradesh polls, Narendra Modi turns to Ambedkar
Programme to mark 125th birth anniversary of Ambedkar will conclude on 24 April with Narendra Modi addressing gram sabhas
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New Delhi: Ahead of next year’s crucial assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch a campaign to showcase the life of B.R. Ambedkar, chief architect of the Constitution, with an eye on capturing the Dalit vote in the country’s most populous state.
The initiative, Gram Uday Se Bharat Uday Abhiyan, will include a major outreach to India’s villages on three basic themes—promotion of social harmony, rural development and farmers’ progress.
The programme to mark the 125th birth anniversary of Ambedkar, a Dalit icon, will conclude on 24 April with Modi addressing all village communities, or gram sabhas, via a satellite broadcast, underlining the enhanced financial and planning powers given to panchayats under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
The move comes before the 2017 elections in Uttar Pradesh, home to a sizeable population of Dalits and socially backward sections. Uttar Pradesh elects 80 members of the Lok Sabha, more than any other state. In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which heads the NDA, won 71 out of the 80 seats.
Steel, mines, labour and employment minister Narendra Singh Tomar denied any political motive behind the Ambedkar programme.
Elections in four states—Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal—and the Union territory of Puducherry in April-May 2016 will precede next year’s Uttar Pradesh polls. The Ambedkar campaign, however, will not be staged in the four states and Puducherry because the model code of conduct is in place there.
“People-centric politics will have electoral benefits," said A.K. Verma, a retired professor of political science now heading Kanpur-based Centre for the Study of Society and Politics (CSSP).
“I think Prime Minister Modi has understood that to ensure that the Bharatiya Janata Party remains the party of governance in the future, he has to broadbase his party’s electoral appeal sometimes even at the cost of his regular supporters, bring in more sections into the party’s core support base like farmers and rural sections, besides Dalits and the socially and economically backward. So he is working towards this goal.
“Also, the development of villages is imperative for the overall development of India. So the focus on the rural sector can be explained in this way," added Verma.
Rural development minister Chaudhary Birender Singh, steel minister Tomar and others briefed reporters about the initiative.
According to Singh, PM Modi is to launch the commemorative events around Ambedkar’s birth anniversary on 14 April from Mhow, in Madhya Pradesh, the birthplace of Ambedkar.
“The programme has been divided into three sections. In the first phase, that is between 14 and 16 April, a programme on social harmony will be conducted in all the 258,000 gram sabhas in the country," he said.
State governments have been asked to organize events at the panchayat level to spread the message of harmony, said Singh, and added: “Dr Ambedkar’s message on social harmony and peace, and instances from his life that illustrate this will be highlighted."
In the next phase, from 17-20 April, “village farmer assemblies will be organized... The aim of this will be to promote agriculture, disseminate information regarding programmes like the Fasal Bima Yojana and their suggestions for improving the agriculture sector will be sought," said Singh.
After two back-to-back droughts in 2014 and 2015, the NDA government has placed a renewed emphasis on the farm sector. In the annual budget presented in February, finance minister Arun Jaitley announced a hike in spending on agriculture to ₹ 35,984 crore, with the focus on bringing more areas under irrigation, outlining a programme for sustainable management of groundwater resources at an estimated cost of ₹ 6,000 crore, and creating 500,000 farm ponds and wells in rain-fed areas.
The centre launched the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, or crop insurance scheme, to increase coverage from 23% of farmers to half of all farmers in the next three years.
This month, the government will launch an electronic platform for marketing of farm produce that will connect registered mandis (markets) across the country. The government hopes this will help farmers get better prices for their produce.
In the last phase of the programme, from 21-24 April, gram sabha meetings will be organized that will discuss development plans, best use of funds allocated to panchayats, making available clean drinking water and sanitation facilities to all villagers, the role of women in village and rural development, and ways to promote the social inclusion of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other marginalized groups, a government statement said.
On 24 April, which is celebrated as local self-governance day, the Prime Minister will address villages from Jamshedpur via satellite, Singh said, adding that all members of Parliament, state legislators and elected village representatives will be part of the event.
The day marks the coming into force of the 73rd amendment to the Constitution that formalized decentralization of power through panchayati raj. Modi’s address is expected to refer to funds transferred directly to panchayats for them to plan their own welfare and development programmes.
“I think this is in keeping with the theme of cooperative federalism that Modi was talking of in the run-up to the 2014 polls. He spoke of decentralization and federalism, and now I think he is trying to keep his word on these things," said Verma of CSSP.
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