Prahlad Tipanya, the Congress candidate from Dewas Lok Sabha seat, has alleged that the party has many upper caste office-bearers who don’t support Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates during elections.
Famous for singing songs of the poet Kabir in Malwa folk style, Tipanya lost from the reserved constituency by a margin of 3,72,249 votes to BJP’s Mahendra Solanki. “Very few people extend their full cooperation in reserved constituencies. Some (upper castes) openly say we don’t have to contest any election from there,” he told The Indian Express. on Sunday. Tipanya said he had conveyed the same to a party leader who sought feedback over the party’s loss.
Tipanya, who was awarded the Padma Shri in 2011, said the Congress won four Assembly segments of the Dewas Lok Sabha constituency in the December polls, but fared poorly in the area four months later. Hinting at sabotage, he claimed that had he received support from office-bearers, things would have been different.
Surendra Chaudhary and Ajay Shah, in-charge of Congress’s SC and ST units, respectively, refused to comment.