Need to counter Congress on Ambedkar: BJP to allies; TDP for Opposition-like coordination

Hours after paying tribute to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his 100th birth anniversary, NDA leaders met at Nadda’s house for almost an hour. Sources said the leaders discussed the Opposition onslaught against the BJP over Shah’s remark, caste census and social justice politics.

Shah was said to have told the leaders, including TDP leader and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, that the Congress was trying to create “false narratives”.

The TDP, sources said, was also of the view that the Opposition was peddling a “false narrative”. The message was clear: the NDA will have to counter the Opposition narrative unitedly, and there was need for coordination among the partners.

Sources said that BJP leaders targeted the Congress for making Shah’s remark on Ambedkar “an issue” to “mislead” the public.

“In the meeting, we were told how the Congress MPs did not react when Shah, in his speech in Rajya Sabha, made the remark. But later, Congress leaders held a meeting where Rahul Gandhi was present and they decided to make the remark an issue to be highlighted. So, Congress conspired to make Shah’s comment an issue to only draw attention,” a leader familiar with the discussions said.

The BJP leaders, including senior Union Ministers, also told NDA members about the “misdeeds” of past Congress governments like “insulting Ambedkar” and imposing Emergency.

The BJP called upon NDA allies to “expose” the Congress on the ground and tell people what the BJP-led NDA government has done to respect the memory of Ambedkar – like developing Panch Tirths (five places of pilgrimage) – and for the “empowerment” of Dalits by giving them their due share in welfare schemes.

After the meeting, leaders of BJP allies, sources said, also met Nadda individually and discussed issues related to their respective agenda and states.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde were not present at the meeting.

The leaders who attended were said to have expressed happiness over the NDA’s victories in the Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections, months after a slight dip in the alliance tally in the Lok Sabha elections.

The JD(U) was represented by Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh and the Shiv Sena by Union MoS Prataprao Ganpatrao Jadhav. Also in attendance were Union Minister and JD (S) leader H D Kumaraswamy, Civil Aviation Minister and TDP leader K Rammohan Naidu, former Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha and Union Ministers Anupriya Patel, Jitan Ram Manjhi and Sanjay Nishad.

Sources said Shah spoke at length on recent political developments, including what transpired during the winter session of Parliament and the learnings from it. He told the leaders that the Congress never respected Ambedkar but was now trying to create a narrative in its favour, which should be countered forcefully and unitedly.

The NDA meeting took place a day before the extended meeting of the Congress Working Committee in Belagavi where it is set to mount a fresh offensive against the BJP over the issues of Ambedkar and caste census. The Congress meet will be followed by a public rally that has been named Jai Bapu, Jai Bhim, Jai Samvidhan rally – apart from marking 100 years of Mahatma Gandhi’s presidency of the Congress in 1924, the Congress intends to corner the BJP and NDA over Ambedkar and the Constitution.