BENGALURU: With the Congress-BJP ideological clash unlikely to die down, the Congress is likely to counter the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) centenary celebrations with a centenary campaign for Dr BR Ambedkar burning the ‘Manusmriti’.
Karnataka RDPR and IT/BT minister Priyank Kharge is facing a backlash from opposition BJP and RSS sympathisers after he requested Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to ban RSS activities on government premises. The Congress high command has shown signs of throwing its weight behind Priyank, with DCM and KPCC president DK Shivakumar and AICC President Mallikarjuna Kharge meeting last Friday evening to discuss the issue. Kharge passed on Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi’s message that the party’s rank and file should stand by Priyank over the issue.
Whenever Priyank has attacked the RSS and BJP, they have retorted that the Congress had defeated Dalit icon Ambedkar in elections. The issue was talked about both inside the assembly and outside, with BJP Dalit leaders alleging that the Congress insulted Ambedkar.
But with Priyank facing a tough time, the Congress is likely to chalk out a plan to pay BJP and RSS in the same coin, according to sources. The party is taking up Ambedkar’s centenary to wean Dalits and backward classes away from the RSS and put BJP’s Dalit leaders on the backfoot.
Congress MLC Ramesh Babu told the TNIE the Ambedkar centenary plan will be chalked out with the party’s top leaders, with the burning the ‘Manusmriti’, an ancient Hindu text that promoted inequality against Dalits and women, in 2027. “Let Dalit leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party, who are criticizing Priyank Kharge for not being a ‘Dalit leader’, prove they are really leaders of the Dalit community. I urge such Dalit leaders to prepare for the centenary celebrations of burning of Manusmriti, the Mahad Satyagraha organised by Dr BR Ambedkar in Maharashtra in 1927,” he taunted.
“On what moral grounds do leaders of the Sangh Parivar, who advocated the Bhagavad Dwaj instead of the Tricolour, and the Manusmriti instead of the Constitution, criticise Congress leaders?” he questioned. Dalit Sangharsha Samithi (DSS) leader Mavalli Shankar said the DSS would launch a campaign on its own.
