Parties vie for crucial Dalit vote as high-stakes polls approach

A cloud of dust envelops the barren expanse of land along the Sagar-Tikamgarh highway where frantic construction is underway against the backdrop of the thinly forested Vindhya range. 

- Chetan Chauhan

Some JCBS are digging pits, others are flattening land. Steel structures have come up at three places on the four-acre plot. The work is for a temple for 13th-century mystic poet Sant Ravidas, who has a huge following among Dalits in election-bound Madhya Pradesh.

On August 12, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of a temple and museum and a pilgrim centre at Badtuma village in Sagar district, which has the highest Dalit population among six districts of the Bundelkhand region. He said at the time that the temple would be one of the biggest of Sant Ravidas and highlight his teachings about equality and upliftment.

"No one has done as much for Dalit upliftment since Independence as the BJP has," the PM said, addressing a constituency that has rallied behind the Bharatiya Janata Party in recent elections, moving away from the Bahujan Samaj Party. Before the foundation stone was laid, the state's ruling BJP government conducted a month-long Shri Ravidas Smarak Nirman Samrasta Yatra collecting soil from 53,000 villages and water from 315 small water streams in the state for the temple.

The announcement came with a dash of controversy.

Within a day of the PM's function, the head of Guru Ravidas Ashram in Sagar district demanded that the Sant Ravidas temple be converted into a hospital and built closer to the ashram in Karrapur village, five kms away from the temple site.