oppn parties How Will The BJP Now Ask For Support From The Dalits?

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  • Allahabad HC said that the UP Police is acting as law unto themselves as they detained a person unlawfully even before his arrest
  • Kolkata witnesses traffic snarls on the first day of the Durga Puja festival as revellers start pnadal-hopping
  • Neha Bora was subsequently released and Dipke is to appear before a magistrate today at noon
  • Delhi Police detained Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke, Neha Bora of AISA, student leaders and supporters ahead of a rally in Connaught Place demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's resignation. The protest followed the detention and jailing of two CJP leaders earlier in the week over demonstrations at Jantar Mantar
  • The Reserve Bank of India is considering further monetary tightening to counter capital outflows and increase the cost of betting against the rupee, according to bankers and analysts cited by Reuters. The measures follow recent rate increases and steps to drain liquidity as pressure on the currency and inflation concerns persist
  • India directed oil marketing companies to stop diverting sugar-based feedstocks for ethanol production in the 2026–27 supply year, according to a new tender issued on Friday. The companies have invited bids for 11 billion litres of ethanol made from alternatives including corn and broken rice, amid concerns about domestic sugar supplies and prices
  • Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said India's trade imbalance with China was growing sharply and attributed the problem partly to restrictions on Indian goods and services entering the Chinese market. China subsequently said it was ready to work with India to address mutual economic and trade concerns; India's trade deficit with China reached $69 billion in the first half of FY2026–27, up 27% year-on-year
  • Indian equity benchmarks extended their recovery on Friday, with the Sensex rising 413.66 points to close at 74,729.27 and the Nifty 50 gaining 148.80 points to settle at 23,146.15. Information technology shares, including Tech Mahindra, Infosys and TCS, helped lift the indices
  • India defeated Zimbabwe by four wickets in the opening women's T20 International in Raipur, taking a 1–0 lead in the three-match series. Deepti Sharma and Niki Prasad combined in an 82-run stand after India's top order collapsed, helping the hosts chase down Zimbabwe's total of 114 for five
  • Indian wrestler Komal won bronze in the women's 59 kg category at the Under-23 World Wrestling Championships in Las Vegas, defeating Kazakhstan's Viktoriia Khusainova 7–2. Fellow Indian Amruta Pujari advanced to the women's 72 kg final after recording two pinfall victories
  • Indian shuttler Jagsher Singh Khangurra secured a bronze medal at the BWF World Junior Badminton Championships in Cairo
  • The Supreme Court of India upheld the Bombay High Court's decision quashing the 2020 write-off of ₹8,415 crore in additional tier-1 bonds issued by Yes Bank (Yes Bank). The court ruled that the bank's administrator lacked the authority to extinguish the bonds under the final reconstruction scheme, strengthening bondholders' claims
  • The Supreme Court issued notices to the Election Commission of India, Delhi Police and opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, in separate petitions concerning electoral-roll revision and protests held in Delhi on October 10–12. The court also directed the preservation of CCTV footage linked to allegations of police excesses
  • The Supreme Court ruled that a person converting from Hinduism to Islam cannot automatically claim backward-class reservation benefits in the new religious community solely on the basis of their previous caste status. The judgment upheld the Madras High Court's decision striking down a 2024 Tamil Nadu government order that permitted such certification for specified communities
  • The Election Commission of India ordered a Special Summary Revision of electoral rolls in 14 states and three Union Territories, using January 1, 2027, as the qualifying date for voter eligibility. The draft rolls are scheduled for publication on November 12, claims and objections will be accepted until December 11, and the final rolls are due on January 4, 2027
Delhi HC refuses to ban CJP's Tiranga rally at Central Park in Connaught Place today /////// Police says will control and regulate it /////// NDMC closes the park for the public on Friday and Saturday
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How Will The BJP Now Ask For Support From The Dalits?

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2020-10-02 20:27:19

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

As the protests against the Hathras brutality gather momentum and moves to Jantar Mantar in Delhi, ordinary citizens are being joined by politicians from most parties that oppose the BJP.Leaders of Left parties and Chandrasekhar Azad of the Bhim Army is there. Delhi chief minister is scheduled to join later in the evening. Thousands of ordinary people have also converged at the spot to register their protest at the way the Dalit girl was brutalized and the way the Yogi Adityanath administration cremated her body in the dead of the night without informing her family. Earlier in the day, a Trinamool Congress delegation led by Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien was stopped from entering Hathras. O'Brien was pushed to the ground and woman members of the team were manhandled. Hathras has been turned into a fortress. The victim's family has alleged that their mobile phones have been confiscated by the police and they are not allowed to step out of their homes.

What is the UP government trying to do? A Dalit girl was gang-raped and grievously injured. She battled for her life for 15 days and then succumbed to her injuries. The culprits have been identified. They are upper caste men with a history of harassing the girl's family. Until now, their political affiliations have not been established. Instead of proceeding in the matter as per law, the UP police 'hijacked' the victim's body from a hospital in Delhi and cremated it hurriedly at 2.30 am in the morning. Due process was thrown to the winds. Who is the UP police trying to protect?

With the incident snowballing into a major controversy, it is now clear that the consolidation of the Hindu vote, for which Amit Shah worked so assiduously in 2014 and which produced amazing results in the general elections that year (with the BJP sweeping the state), is crumbling brick by brick under the stewardship of Yogi Adityanath. The BJP might see the incident as a one-off that has been hijacked by the opposition to give a bad name to the administration but the fact is that Dalit women are being regularly raped across UP. Justice is being denied to most of them. Perpetrators are roaming free and families are being pressurized into withdrawing their complaints. UP is turning into a upper caste bastion and a police state.

The BJP can thanks its stars that the opposition in UP is in no position to take advantage of its mistakes and start a people's agitation. Both the Samajvadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party are in a state of flux. They neither have the leadership nor the resources to take on the BJP. Have Akhilesh Yadav or Mayawati even thought about going to Hathras to meet the victim's family? The Congress has no one apart from the Delhi-based Rahul and Priyanka. Hence, the BJP can get away with turning Hathras into a fortress or bullying the victim's family or stopping politicians from going to Hathras. But the anger that is building up among the backward classes means that the BJP can kiss goodbye to Dalit votes. Or is it banking on the short memory of the people and the innate ability of the politicians to provide lollipops before elections to swing them back?

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