Mad scramble for Dalit candidates: Congress may pay price for neglect

AS Kerala races towards the assembly election next May, the Congress is in a desperate eleventh-hour search for Dalit and tribal candidates.

- RAJESH ABRAHAM @Kochi

The scramble has laid bare a bitter truth: The party has failed to groom and promote leaders from the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, leaving itself exposed in 16 reserved constituencies (14 SC and two ST).

The shift from the past could not have been starker. Until the mid-1980s, the Congress was never short of stalwarts from backward communities. The likes of Vella Eacharan Iyyani, MP Thami, K K Balakrishnan, K Raghavan Master, Damodaran Kalassery, P K Velayudhan, K K Madhavan, T K C Vaduthala, Kittappa Narayana Swamy and Dr M A Kuttappan gave the party both legislative heft and grassroots presence. These leaders emerged not just as candidates, but as mass figures who commanded respect.

But as factionalism deepened in the late 1980s and '90s, Dalit and tribal representation shrank. "The main reason for the failure of Congress to promote SC/ST leaders was the endless feud between the 'A' and 'I' groups. It choked the rise of new leaders and created a vacuum that remains unfilled even today," said political analyst Dijo Kappen.