Members of various Scheduled Caste (SC) organisations in the State, under the leadership of Basavamurthy Madar Chennaiah Swami, Chitradurga, and Shadakshari Swami of Adi Jambava Peetha, Hiriyur, would be staging a ‘semi-nude’ procession in Bengaluru on July 27 to protest against the inordinate delay on the part of the State government in implementing the Justice A.J. Sadashiva Commission report on providing internal reservation among SCs.
Addressing a joint press conference here on Monday, L. Marenna, senior leader, H. Thippeswamy, president of Dr. Ambedkar Sangha, Ballari, Girimallappa, Mundargi Nagaraj, T. Pompapati, Venkatesh Murthy, and J. Jagannath, among other leaders, criticised the State government for not initiating any steps to implement the Commission’s report that would benefit the oppressed communities.
They said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who as the Opposition leader had announced that the report would be implemented if Congress came to power, was not initiating any steps in this regard. “It is unfortunate that five years have passed after the Commission submitted its report and the State government was dilly-dallying over taking a decision on adopting a resolution accepting the report and forward it to the Union government recommending its implementation”, the leaders regretted.
The semi-nude protest would be part of the ‘Bengaluru chalo’ programme, in which dalits from all the districts would participate, they said adding that all the dalit leaders and organisations had forged unity to pressure the government to implement the Commission report.
“If the Siddaramaiah government failed to take a decision during the ongoing session of the legislature, we will have to construe that his government’s concern was only ‘fake’ and the dalit communities will be forced to intensify the agitation”, Mr. Marenna said.
