The more recent clashes between the Dalits and the upper-caste Thakurs in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, where a Thakur is the Chief Minister, and the earlier lynching of a group of Dalits at U, Gujarat, by gau rakshaks (cow vigilantes) for skinning a dead cow, their traditiol occupation, have deepened the sense of alietion among the Dalits towards the Hindutva brigade. There was no altertive, therefore, for the BJP but to try to douse the flames by momentarily suppressing its ‘savar’ (upper caste) instincts and opting for a Dalit President. It is anybody’s guess, however, whether the act of tokenism will succeed, for few among the Dalits will believe that the saffron brotherhood’s ingrained bias against the lower castes is about to undergo a dramatic change. In real life, therefore, outside the heated atmosphere of Lutyens Delhi, the electoral arithmetic is likely to remain more or less the same, as will the efforts by a new generation of young Dalits emerging from Saharanpur and U to put together a Dalit-Muslim alliance.