CHANDIGARH: Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday dubbed the Congress as an “anti-Dalit” party and accused it of insulting leaders like Kumari Selja and Ashok Tanwar. He also lashed out at Rahul Gandhi for his remarks on reservation and asserted that if there is anybody who can protect the quota, it is only PM Narendra Modi.
At an election rally in Tohana, around 55 km from NCR Faridabad, Shah said: “The Congress is an anti-SC (Scheduled Caste) party. The party always insulted SC leaders, be it Ashok Tanwar or Kumari Selja. The Congress has insulted everyone.’’
On Rahul Gandhi’s remarks on reservations, Shah said, “He spoke in America that there was no need for reservation after development. They (Congress) will remove reservation after development. Our Haryana is a fully developed state. Do you want reservation or not,” Shah asked the gathering. “If there is anybody who can protect the SC and OBC reservation, it is PM Modi,’’ Shah asserted.
“I want to remind Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Rahul Gandhi about the 2005 Gohana incident. Who was responsible for this? It was the Congress. In Gohana, a few homes of SCs were set afire after an SC in the village was suspected of being involved in a murder.’’
Shah also referred to the 2010 Mirchpur incident. On April 21, 2010, a group of villagers had allegedly torched more than a dozen houses belonging to Dalits. A teenage girl and her father were charred to death in the incident.
Appealing to the Dalit voters, he said that Bharat Ratna was given to Dr B R Ambedkar when the Congress went out of power. Attacking the previous Congress governments, Shah said before the BJP came to power in the state, government jobs were not given without ‘kharchi’ (corruption) or ‘parchi’ (favouritism). “It was the BJP government that provided jobs in a transparent manner,” he added.
Hitting out at Rahul for his remarks concerning the Sikh community, Shah asked him to apologise. “The entire country is proud of Sikh Gurus. The tenth Sikh Guru (Gobind Singh) is respected in every home.”
Dalit vote bank
Looking for Dalit support (the community counts more than 20% of Haryana’s population) that the Congress asserts belongs to it, Shah remided Bhupinder Singh Hooda about Gohana incident