BJP eyes Dalit vote bank

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, February 20

The presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Seer Govardhan Temple in Varanasi on the occasion of Guru Ravidas Jayanti yesterday for the second consecutive year clearly hints towards the BJP targeting the Dalit vote bank.

Union MoS Vijay Sampla had reached the venue from here for the event. The temple is being managed by the Dera Sachkhand Ballan in Jalandhar and dera chief Sant Niranjan Dass had gone from here via a special train, Begampura Express, on February 16.

Pictures from the temple, which showed Modi, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Sampla and the dera head in one frame, were released everywhere in the state via social media to spread across the message and have a larger impact on the 31 per cent Dalit community here in the forthcoming Lok Sabha poll.

Last year, when a similar event was organised, Sant Niranjan Dass could not make it to the darbar at the time of PM’s visit as his security had cordoned it off. BJP leaders had to apologise to the sant for the lapse on the part of the government.