VISAKHAPATNAM: Bhim Rao Ambedkar is, undoubtedly, the flavour of the season. He has just got a posthumous lease of life in India’s volatile political arena, with parties competing each other to have him remembered on his 125th birth anniversary.
If BJP asked its UP MPs to dine at Dalit huts in honour of the iconic Ambedkar and kick started its Bihar assembly poll campaign on April 14, his official birth date; the Congress has year-long celebrations chalked out. Now even the CPI-M has joined the race, giving more reasons to Mayawati and her Bahujan Samaj Party to crib over these “stealthy” acts.
Never short of ideas, CPI(M), on Wednesday, took time away from other pressing ‘tactical political issues’ to adopt a resolution demanding a “special session of Parliament” to commemorate Ambedkar’s 125th birth anniversary. “What better way to remember him”, the principle drafter of the Indian Constitution, “than to call a special session of Parliament to discuss the issues and condition of Dalits,” said Prakash Karat, the CPI(M) general secretary. First time, perhaps, not ‘class struggle’ but a ‘community’s condition’ entered CPI(M)’s political discourse.
Well, Karat did not stop at that. His party’s highest decision making bodies, the Politburo and the Central Committee, may just get their first representation from the Dalit communities. Asked why the CPI(M), which never fails to position itself as the ‘real voice’ of the underprivileged, failed to elect a single member from SC/ST communities in either PB or CC, Karat retorted: “Wait for two more days, you will have your answer.”
For the meanwhile, it harangued the champions of “neo-liberal policies for the worsened condition of dalits”. CPI(M) resolution also said the SC/ST prevention of atrocities Act needs to be strengthened.