NEW DELHI: On Dalit icon Dr B. R. Ambedkar’s 123rd birth anniversary on Monday, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attempted to co-opt the scheduled castes into the saffron fold, projecting itself as an upholder of Dalit rights against the UPA’s alleged preference for Muslims, The Indian Express said on Tuesday.

In his public rallies, Narendra Modi spoke of the alleged injustice meted out by the Congress to the legacy of Dr Ambedkar, while the BJP circulated propaganda material that placed the welfare of Dalits squarely in competition with those of minorities, especially Muslims.

The material, circulated at an Ambedkar’s birth anniversary function at the party headquarters, accused the Sachar Committee and the Ranganath Misra Commission — both set up to investigate the social and economic backwardness of Muslims — of helping the Congress-led government to curtail benefits to Scheduled Castes.

“The Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee and the Ranganath Misra Commission helped the UPA government to divert its focus away from the scheduled castes towards the Muslims, and got it to cut the funds for scheduled caste welfare to allot additional resources for Muslims,” the propaganda material said.

According to the pamphlet, the foundations for this shift were laid by the prime minister himself, when he allegedly accorded priority to minorities over SCs.

“Successive prime ministers and subsequent governments since independence have consistently assured first priority to the welfare of scheduled castes. But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh completely changed this by saying that ‘Muslims have the first right over national resources’,” the BJP literature said.

“The Congress (government) appointed the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission with the intention of wooing converted Christians and Muslims. The commission’s report recommended that converted Christians and Muslims should be included in the list of scheduled castes so that they get the benefit of job reservations,” the BJP said.

It added, “About 15 crore converted Christians and Muslims will become eligible for reservations along with 22 crore members of scheduled castes.”

The BJP claimed that it was the party’s opposition that had held back the implementation of the Ranganath Misra Commission report.