Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said the Centre would soon form a committee which would adopt all possible ways for empowering Madigas(a SC community) with regard to their demand for categorisation of Scheduled Castes.
He was speaking at a rally organised here by the Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS), a community organisation of Madigas, one of the biggest constituents of Scheduled Castes in the Telugu states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
The MRPS has been fighting for categorisation of SCs since the last three decades on the grounds that the fruits of reservations and others have not reached them. The BJP has stood with them in every struggle since the last three decades, Modi said.
“We are committed to end this injustice at the earliest…It is our promise that we will soon constitute a committee that will adopt all possible ways for empowering you. You and we also know that a big legal process is going on in the Supreme Court. We consider your struggle to be just,” he said.
“We will ensure justice. It is the top priority of the Government of India to see to it that you get justice in court also. With full strength, the Government of India will stand in favour of justice as your colleague,” he said.
The prime minister said Madiga as his leader in the agitation and himself as his “assistant” and assured that he would stand with the community in their struggle for justice.
The prime minister said political parties and leaders made promises to Madigas and betrayed them in the past. “I am apologising for their sins,” Modi said.
Modi also recalled working under late BJP president Bangaru Lakshman, who belonged to the SC and hailed from Telangana. The prime minister asserted that the BJP alone can guarantee social justice to Telangana people and take the state on the golden path of progress.
Meanwhile, Modi slammed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over his comments on former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi. The prime minister said the Bihar CM has insulted Manjhi on the floor of the assembly and termed it as shameful. It was attempted to say that Manjhi did not deserve to hold the chief minister’s post, he alleged.
He also alleged that the Bihar Chief Minister (Nitish Kumar) had insulted his friend and late Dalit leader Ram Vilas Paswan.
Modi also hit out at the Congress, saying twice it did not allow B R Ambedkar to win elections and alleged that the grand old party did not allow Ambedkar’s portrait to be installed in the old Parliament building for decades.
He alleged that it was due to the grand old party that the architect of the Constitution BR Ambedkar was not accorded the Bharat Ratna for decades together and it was possible only after the BJP supported government was formed at the Centre.
“This Congress twice did not allow Babasaheb Ambedkar to win. For decades together, the Congress ensured that Babasaheb’s portrait was not put up in the old Parliament, Central Hall…Babasaheb was not given the Bharat Ratna for decades together because of the Congress,” he alleged.
Taking a dig at the BRS government in Telangana, the prime minister said during statehood agitation, the party had promised to make a Dalit as the first Chief Minister of Telangana.
But, after the formation of the state, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao “encroached” on the CM’s chair after crushing the aspirations of every Dalit. “BRS is anti-Dalit and the Congress is no less than that,” he said. The BRS promised to provide land to Dalits. Whether it has fulfilled the promise, the PM asked.
The BRS also promised giving thousands of crores of rupees under ‘Dalit Bandhu’ scheme (financial assistance to Dalits to start business). Did you benefit from it, he asked.
The court also had to say that the beneficiaries of ‘Dalit Bandhu’ scheme should be selected in an impartial manner, he said.
The BRS government has given “irrigation scams” instead of irrigation schemes, Modi alleged. He further alleged that the BRS government in association with the Delhi’s AAP committed “liquor scam” worth thousands of crores of rupees.
“These people cooperate in corruption and not in work,” he said.
The prime minister described AAP as a staunch ally of Congress in Delhi and that BRS was enacting a drama of fighting against Congress in Telangana.