Congress plays dalit card to irk KCR
Hyderabad: In what appears to be a deft move aimed at needling the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday declared that the Congress would make a Dalit the first chief minister of the Telangana State.
TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, who had made a similar promise before State division, has since been seen as being evasive on the same. It's against this backdrop and in the wake of alliance negotiations between the TRS and the Congress that Jairam Ramesh has sought to put KCR on the backfoot with his Dalit CM promise.
The Congress has reason to be miffed with KCR not only for his refusal to merge his party with it but also for playing hardball in alliance talks. The logic behind Jairam's Dalit CM promise seems to be two-fold: a) to send a message to Dalits that the Congress stands for them; b) to put the ball back in KCR's court in the ongoing war of words.
Congress Dalit leaders in Telangana welcomed Jairam Ramesh's declaration. Union Minister of State Sarve Satyanarayana, an SC, immediately threw his hat in the ring, saying, 'If the Congress decides to make a Dalit the CM, I will surely be in the race.'
However, other chief ministerial aspirants in the party like K Jana Reddy, D Srinivas, N Uttam Kumar Reddy and DK Aruna haven't responded yet to the development.
Nonetheless, party leaders hope that Jairam Ramesh's gesture may help the party gain more traction among Dalit voters and give it the crucial edge over the TRS in the ensuing elections.
In the neck-and-neck race between the two parties to charm the underprivileged sections ahead of polls, KCR has already announced that he would spend Rs 50,000 crore on SCs in the next five years and provide 12% quota in jobs and education to the STs.
News Posted: 11 March, 2014
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