Left discriminating against cadres based on caste: Lekhi

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday levelled serious allegations against the Communist Party of India and the Students' Federation of India (SFI) for discriminating against their own cadres based on caste.

BJP MP and national spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi alleged that the Left parties were for "social disparity" and "discriminative attitudes towards cadres".

She said: “The Left-Congress liberal attitude has created a series of disturbing pattern from the University of Hyderabad (UoH) to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) to Jadavpur University (JU)”. She alleged that UoH Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula was initially a member of  the SFI, the Left's students’ union and later joined ASA (Ambedkar Students’ Association) as he was dissolute by the SFI.

Lekhi said Raj Kumar Sahu, who also resigned from the SFI, was being dissolute unlike Rohit Vemula, as he raised some serious allegations against the party. “Raj Kumar Sahu, who was also part of the Joint Action Investigation Team, raised a few issues. It showed their (Left’s) dishonest political interest and the money power that they are using to continue the tension among the students.”

Lekhi also highlighted an article published in a national daily, which reads, “No Dalit has been elected as a politburo member in the past 50 one years”. “If they are liberal, then why this sort of discriminative attitude has been made by them?”, Lekhi added.

On the JNU row, she said, “If a liberal ideology becomes a thread for the country, if it hurts our love for the country, if it hurts our patriotism, then the protest against it is natural. The emotion towards your country, Bharat Mata, doesn’t denounce as intolerance”.