Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday led a delegation of Opposition parties to President Ram Nath Kovind to express their concerns about the ‘dilution’ of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) Act and sought his “immediate intervention to help the Dalits tide over the crisis.”
Speaking to reporters after meeting the President, Mr. Gandhi said, “We went to meet the President on the dilution of the SC/ST Act. We gave a representation. The atrocities are increasing and the Act is being weakened. The President was quite positive and supportive.”
Addressing reporters, Mr. Gandhi said the President assured the delegation that “he would assess and take relevant action.”
Others leaders who were part of the delegation included Satish Misra of the Bahujan Samaj Party, T.K. Rangarajan of the CPI (M), T.K.S. Elangovan of the DMK apart from senior Congress leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge and Anand Sharma.
In a memorandum to the President, the delegation said: “At the time of hearing of the case before the SC, the Centre stated that anticipatory bail could be allowed in cases of atrocities against Dalits, if no prima facie case was made out. This shows the double-faced character of the present government, one inside the courts and the other outside, before public and media.”
