The issue of atrocities against Dalits continued to resonate inside and outside Parliament, with Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati demanding a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue.
Speaking outside Parliament, she said atrocities against Dalits were going up “day by day”, mentioning the Una incident in Gujarat and another in Maharashtra where two Dalit boys were beaten up after they overtook another vehicle.
“In Uttar Pradesh, this is going on a bigger scale. Such incidents are happening all over the country after the BJP came to power,” she said. “When these are occurring on a regular basis across the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi should not keep silent. In BJP-ruled States, it is happening on a bigger scale. But the Prime Minister is silent,” she said.
“It seems that he has no concern over the incidents. We were expecting that Mr. Modi would definitely say something on the Gujarat incident, but he did not,” she said.
Ally seeks CBI probe
In the Lok Sabha, Chirag Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party, an ally of the ruling NDA, spoke about two Dalit youths who were allegedly thrashed and urinated upon in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district. Alleging that the State government failed to act on a series of atrocities against Dalits in Darbhanga and Kishanganj, Mr. Paswan demanded a CBI investigation into the cases.
He said there were 20 crore Dalits in the country, but very few people were willing to come to their rescue at times of crisis. Pappu Yadav (RJD) accused the U.P. government of trying to create a rift among different castes.
Meenakshi Lekhi (BJP) said there had been a lot of politics over atrocities on Dalits, and pointed out that as a lawyer she had filed a case against the derogatory use of names indicative of caste such as Bhangi, Chooda and Chamaar, which was against the dignity of communities.
“As I do not understand any south Indian language, I would like States to discourage such caste names that outrage the dignity of communities,” she said.
M. Ramchandran (Cong.) raised the issue of the arrest of two sisters on an alleged complaint of a CPI(M) worker in Kerala and claimed that, as they were daughters of a Dalit leader, they were harassed by the police at the instance of the Left activists. His remarks drew loud protests from Left members present in the House.
