Bengaluru: Not many expected BJP state president B.S. Yeddyurappa's meal of hotel food at a Dalit's home in Tumakuru to become a raging controversy a year ahead of the Assembly polls but it has happened and the reasons are not hard to find.
Chasing the Dalit vote has become a top priority for the ruling Congress and the BJP which is making a frenzied bid to return to power, in a state where the community is the biggest at 1.08 crore in a 6 crore population.
Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and KPCC chief Dr G. Parameshwar have added fire to the debate claiming Yeddyurappa who belongs to the upper caste Lingayat community, insulted Dalits by preferring hotel food to the home cooked one at the Dalit's home. Both leaders know that targeting the BJP for its preference for the upper castes, is the best way to draw the Dalits tighter into the Congress fold.
Former BSP chief and noted Dalit leader B. Gopal feels Yeddyurappa did err by not eating what was there in the Dalit's house. "If he is there to study the plight of Dalits, he should eat what's available. So Congress leaders have attacked him, there is nothing wrong in it."
However, Gopal does not mince words while criticising the Congress government saying they miserably failed to empower Dalits in the last four years despite having almost a lakh crore rupees of funds.
This also explains the BJP effort to attract the community with Yeddyurappa hopping from one Dalit home to the other across the state. The BJP definitely does not want a state-wide repeat of the disaster in Nanjangud, a reserved constituency, where veteran Dalit leader Srinivasprasad was crushed by a Congress leader in recent bypolls by a huge margin — especially, when the polls are due.
