They compete to grab the Dalits in electroral push & shove and AAP seems to have no ideological qualms

Key BJP Dalit face gets AAP ticket
Neha Lalchandani,TNN | Dec 25, 2014, 06.10 AM IST

NEW DELHI: Unfazed by BJP's ongoing membership drive in Dalit-dominated areas, Aam Aadmi Party says it has managed to pull away one of two prominent Dalit faces that were part of the last BJP government in Delhi. Former deputy speaker Fateh Singh, who belongs to the Jatav community, has been declared the party's candidate in Gokulpuri, one of the three reserved seats which AAP lost in the 2013 election.

"BJP has not fared too well with the Dalit community and in its best performance in the 1993 election, it won six of then 13 reserved seats. Even then, the party did well in the more urban seats like Karol Bagh, etc. This section of Delhi's population has been a stronghold of AAP and with the joining of Singh, we have consolidated our support base," said a party functionary.

The eagerness to woo the roughly 22 lakh Dalits in the city is evident with both BJP and AAP having launched their SC/ST wings recently. BJP has also formulated an elaborate plan to break AAP's support group, part of which is its membership drive that was launched on Sunday. AAP, too, is trying to play its cards wisely. Singh, for instance, who the party is playing up, belongs to the Jatav community, the largest SC community in Delhi with a population of roughly 12 lakhs. The two other prominent Dalit faces in the party, Rakhi Bidlan and Girish Soni, both former ministers in the AAP cabinet, have also been given tickets. This year, a former Jatav candidate from Patel Nagar has been replaced with Hazari Lal Chauhan, a Khatig, thereby covering almost all Dalit communities on AAP's candidate list.

AAP, meanwhile, won nine out of 12 SC seats in the 2013 election. In two, Bawana and Sultanpur Majra, the party came second while in Gokulpuri, it came a distant third.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Key-BJP-Dalit-face-gets-AAP-ticket/articleshow/45636124.cms