POOR PEOPLE...............PURPOSE 445
the reservation should remain so long as the Untouchability is there but our own members who were elected to the Parliament on Congress tickets opposed me leaving aside the other Caste Hindu members. I ask those people who seek Congress tickets, what will they do after the reservation is not there ? Will the Congress ask them to stand on general seats on its ticket ? Nobody will then even spit on them. During the past, these high caste people have treated us in a degrading manner and they will do it after the reservation is gone. I tell you if they are sympathising with us at the moment, it is only because they want to make us fools and put their yesmen at the reserved seats. After the reservation is abolished, they will again call us Chamars, Bhangis. Therefore, I tell you that you should be very cautious now and unite under the banner of the Scheduled Castes Federation. It is your duty to give your votes to the Federation candidates who will die for your cause.
Now I want to tell you a few important things. Firstly, the election symbol of the Scheduled Castes Federation is ‘Elephant’. I have come to know that some other party has also selected this symbol with this distinction that our symbol is only ‘Elephant’ whereas they have a ‘Charkha’ (Spinning wheel) over the Elephant. So be careful about it. Do not be misled. Our Party Symbol is simply ‘Elephant’ without any Charkha.
Secondly, we are very few in number. If we put our candidates, they will be pulled down by other parties as they have got majority of votes. Our strength is only 10 per cent in the villages and you will agree that with so little votes, we cannot succeed in the coming elections. So I would request you all that every man and woman should cast his vote on the polling day leaving aside other affairs. The result will be that we will at least get our votes. If even the few voters, did not cast their votes it will be very difficult for our candidates to succeed.
Thirdly, I want to impress upon you that owing to our being minority, we shall have to join hands with some party in the elections. There will be distributive system of voting this time and where we have reserved seats, all the people will have two votes. One for the candidate who is standing on the general seat