Geetanjali Gayatri
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 30
In the year preceding elections to the Assembly, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar is out to woo various sections of society. Dalits are the latest addition to his list as he dined in a Dalit household in Karnal on Monday night under the ongoing Gram Swaraj programme.
Sources said though this one-night stay and dinner in a Dalit household was part of the programme in which all party MLAs and MPs had been asked to spend a night in a village in a bid to reach out to the common man, the Chief Minister intended to take it further.
The Chief Minister, using the Gram Swaraj programme as the launch pad, had already decided to visit and stay in villages where no Chief Minister has gone.
Chief Minister’s media adviser Rajiv Jain said the process to identify such villages was on. “This ongoing programme will conclude on May 5. However, the Chief Minister plans to take it forward and not only stay in villages, but to dine in houses of Dalits as well. This is certainly not a one-off thing,” he said.
The dining of Chief Minister, MLAs and MPs in houses of Dalits assumed special significance since the INLD had recently tied up with the BSP. The BJP was trying to make inroads into the Dalit vote bank and this outreach programme was being seen as an attempt to counter the new political tie-up.
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/2jlgGCg
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