Why BJP is investing 7 months in a Sant Ravidas outreach before 2027 polls

In UP, Dalits account for 21% of the state population, with 84 Assembly seats of the state’s 403 seats reserved for the community. In the 2022 Assembly polls, the BJP and its ally Apna Dal (Soneylal) together bagged 63 Scheduled Caste (SC) seats compared to 20 won by the then Samajwadi Party-led Opposition alliance.

In Punjab, where 32% of the population is Dalit, the 117-member Assembly has 34 seats reserved for SCs. The BJP failed to win any of these seats in the 2022 Assembly elections.

Sant Ravidas’s followers – the Ravidassias – are a Dalit community whose bulk, or more than 12 lakh, live in the Doaba region of Punjab, including the Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur, Nawanshar and Jalandhar districts. In fact, the 2022 Assembly polls had been postponed from February 14 to February 20 following representations made by parties saying the poll date would clash with Guru Ravidas Jayanti, for which Ravidassias travel to Varanasi in large numbers.

Why this is important

Considering the role of Dalits in UP politics, ahead of 2027 elections, the BJP’s campaign for Guru Ravidas Jayanti on February 20 has a special focus on the heartland state where 104 urns filled with soil from Ravidas’s birth place at Seer Govardhanpur in Varanasi will be carried to every village, while another 27 urns will be taken to different states.

As per the programme’s schedule, “maati pujan (worship of soil)” in Seer Gorvardhan will be performed on July 27. BJP leaders in 131 groups from across the country will reach Varanasi on July 28 to fill soil into the urns.

On July 29, BJP national president Nitin Nabin and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will launch the seven-month-long Shri Guru Ravidas Maharaj Samrasta Sankalp Abhiyan from Seer Govardhanpur and address a Samrasta Sankalp Sabha, for which the party has been directed to ensure a gathering of 25,000. BJP will organise deepotsav, recitation of Guruvani, bhajan sandhya, and samrasta sankalp at Sant Ravidas temples across the country.

Urns will be handed over to party delegates from 98 organisational district units and six regional units in UP and 27 other states for the Kalash Vandan programme to carry the urns to various temples and sant sammelans from July 30 to September 10.

The party will also reach out to saints, mahatmas, gurus and mahants from July 29 to August 31, seeking their blessings and appealing to them to join the Sant Ravidas events under the seven-month programme.

A major highlight of the programme will be the Shri Guru Ravidas Maharaj Samrasta Yatra that will be launched from Jalandhar in Punjab on October 5 and conclude in Varanasi on November 5. That yatra halts in villages and towns – particularly Dalit-dominated localities – en route from Punjab to UP.

BJP Scheduled Caste wing national president Lal Singh Arya said the party has already organised workshops in 18 states to prepare for the programme. “Sant Ravidas worked for human welfare, equality, and social harmony. He was against religious conversion. His message and ideas will be taken to people through 650 jayanti programmes,” Arya said, adding that the yatra’s exact route would be announced soon.

UP BJP general secretary and in-charge of yatra in the state Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan said, “This event is not connected with elections. The party has been celebrating Sant Ravidas Jayanti in the past too, but the party is organising programmes this time at a grand scale.”

Ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 23 had addressed an event for the 647th birth anniversary of Sant Guru Ravidas in Varanasi and unveiled a statue of Sant Ravidas in a park adjoining the Sant Guru Ravidas Janmasthali temple at Seer Govardhanpur, and laid the foundation stone for the Sant Ravidas Museum.