The mood and decision of the Scheduled Caste voters will be decisive in 17 reserved Vidhan Sabha seats out of 90 of the Haryana Assembly Elections that go for poll on October 5. About 20.2 percent of SC voters of a total of 2.03 crore, will decide the fate of 1031 candidates and which party will rule Haryana. While the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the two major political parties in the State, get battle-ready banking largely on the Jat and non-jat (OBC) vote - bank respectively, the vote of Scheduled Castes could be the deciding factor in the Assembly poll. Additionally, the battle for the SC vote is heating up with the Bahujan Samaj Party and Chandra Shekhars Azad Samaj Party entering the poll fray. According to the 2011 census, SCs make up 20.2 percent of the States population, with 17 assembly seats reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates. In rural areas, the SC population is even higher at 22.5 percent, compared to 15.8 percent in urban areas. Fatehabad has the highest concentration of SC population with 30.2 percent followed by Sirsa with 29.9 and Ambala with 26.3 while Mewat has the lowest with 6.9 followed by Faridabad with 12.4 and Gurugram with 13.1 percent. Among the SC groups, the Jatavs — who account for roughly half of the Dalit population — are particularly influential in Haryana. They have a sizable population of more than 10 percent in 49 seats - 11 in Hisar, nine each in Ambala and Rohtak, eight in Gurugram, seven in Faridabad, and five in Karnal. To woo the voters, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which recently accepted the recommendations of Haryana State Scheduled Castes Commission regarding the sub-classification of scheduled castes for the purpose of reservation in Government jobs into two categories following an August 1 Supreme Court ruling, has given tickets to nine candidates from the Deprived Scheduled Castes (DSCs) and eight tickets to Other Scheduled Castes (OSC). The OSC comprised castes such as Chamar, Jatia Chamar, Rehgar, Raigar, Ramdasi, Ravidasi, Jatav, Mochi, Ramdasia. The Congress, on the other hand, has given party tickets to 12 candidates from Other Scheduled Castes and five from the Deprived Scheduled Castes (DSC). In the 2019 Assembly polls, the BJP won five of 17 reserved seats, the Congress seven, and the JJP four. Correspondingly, the saffron party bagged 33 percent of the reserved seat votes, the Congress 30 percent, the JJP 22 percent, the BSP 3 percent, and the INLD just 1 percent. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP saw a huge slip in its SC votes, which moved towards Congress. Congress created a social combination of Jats, Dalits, and Muslims accounting for roughly half of the states population. About 68 percent of SC voters backed the INDIA bloc (Congress-AAP), a jump of more than 40 percent. Only 24 percent of SC votes backed the saffron party, a drop of 34 percent. As a result of the shift, the BJP lost five of the 10 parliamentary seats. Congress won both SC-reserved Lok Sabha seats - Ambala and Sirsa. The SCs in Haryana are believed to have voted against the ruling party in large numbers this time because of apprehensions over changes in the Constitution if the BJP-led NDA came to power with 400-plus seats. Now, Mayawatis BSP has partnered with Abhay Chautalas Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), and Chandrasekhar Azads Bhim Army has joined forces with Dushyant Chautalas Jannayak Janata Party (JJP). However, the BSPs influence is declining in the State, and its overall vote share went down from 6.7 percent in 2009 to 4.2 percent in 2019. While Congress emerged as the biggest beneficiary of SC support in 2024, both Mayawati and Azad could pull enough votes to upset the partys chances in what is expected to be a close contest. Furthermore, a section of Dalits are demanding Congress name Kumari Shelja as its Chief Minister face instead of Bhupinder Hooda. The BJP hopes to gain from this factionalism. It also hopes that the BSP and the ASP along with the INLD and JJP attract a sizable section of SC voters thus negating some of the gains made by Congress in the general elections. Incidentally, both INLD and JJP represent the dominant Jat community and the BJP hopes they inflict double damage on Congress, with them attracting Jat and the BSP/ASP Dalit voters. It remains to be seen how much of the BSPs vote share is bagged by the ASP, further weakening it in the State. However, in a tight election, the vote share bagged by these parties and the role they play could become crucial. Recently, while addressing the gathering of SC Community, former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda alleged that BJP suffers from an anti-SC mentality. This is the reason why the BJP is ending permanent government jobs through privatisation and Skill Corporation. Along with this, by closing government schools, the education system is being continuously handed over to private hands. If government jobs and government educational institutions are abolished, then the reservation of SC will automatically end. The Congress and backward society complement each other, Hooda added. In his recent address to the SC community, State Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini said that the Congress party is spreading the lie that if BJP is voted back to power at the Centre it will abolish reservation and scrap the Constitution. It is the Congress that insulted the Constitution on various occasions, he added. A congress leader said that the SC voters are expected to vote on similar lines as in the Lok Sabha poll, especially with the two elections taking place within a short span of time and the mood being largely anti-BJP. A BJP leader said that a large number of schemes were launched by the Government in the State. Under the Mukhyamantri Vivah Shagun Yojna, SC families are provided financial aid of Rs 71,000 for their daughters wedding. Rs 61,000 was disbursed at the time of registration itself. Under the Dr BR Ambedkar Awas Navinikaran Yojna, financial assistance of Rs 80,000 was being provided for the repair of houses for poor families, he added. Political Observers opined that the voting pattern for SCs in Haryana over the past decade, going by the number of reserved Assembly seats held by different parties suggests that the community voted overwhelmingly for the BJP in the 2014 Assembly poll, but remained evenly scattered in the previous election. Congress performed well in the last Lok Sabha poll in Haryana due to SCs rallying behind it in a big way with the party successfully building a narrative suggesting that the BJP would amend the Constitution and scrap reservation if it wins 400 seats. A similar narrative is unlikely to work in this assembly election. The outcome of the Lok Sabha elections in Haryana, where the ruling BJP and the Congress won five seats each, has set the stage for a tight contest in the Assembly elections, Observers added.

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