A Dalit man beaten to death in Uttarakhand’s Tehri Garhwal; a 18-year-old Dalit girl gang-raped in Thanaghazi in Rajasthan’s Alwar district; stones hurled at a Dalit wedding procession in Gujarat’s Aravalli district - these are some of the crimes that have taken place in the past few weeks, even as the country was in middle of, as the cliche goes, the ‘festival of democracy’.

These aren’t isolated incidents. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, crimes against Dalits have increased by 25 percent between 2006 and 2016 and the trend has been continuing since then.

Subjected to physical attacks as well as more day-to-day forms of humiliation, there is a simmering anger among Dalits across the India. While the anger goes beyond politics, in this election it appears to be mostly directed towards the ruling BJP.