Manusmriti flows in BJP-RSS leaders’ veins: Jignesh Mevani

New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday launched a sharp attack on the Modi government at the Centre and the BJP government in Gujarat over the atrocities being committed on Dalits and weaker sections in the state.

Gujarat Congress MLA Jignesh Mevani, while addressing a press conference at the party headquarters, said that BJP-RSS people, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, “do not believe in Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Constitution, rather they believe in the values of Manusmriti”.

Mevani said that the “RSS-BJP leaders have said on record to ‘Throw Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Constitution into the sea’ as they did not want the Constitution of India, but Manusmriti”.

He claimed Manusmriti “runs in the veins of the BJP-RSS leaders”.

“As a result of this thinking, copies of the Constitution were burnt on the streets of Delhi, Rohit Vemula was forced to commit suicide, the family of Hathras rape victim was not allowed to see her one last time and Dalit youths were brutally beaten in Una, Gujarat,” he said.

Mevani also referred to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s “derogatory remarks about Dr Ambedkar in the Parliament”.

He cited the horrifying case of gang-rape of a Dalit girl for 11 days in Santrampur district, in which “three BJP leaders were involved”.

The Congress leader claimed that the first FIR that “included the name of BJP leaders was torn up by a police sub-inspector and a ASI along with the pages of the station diary and the guilty police personnel were let off with a fine of only Rs 3,000”.

Mevani also cited the “very low rate of conviction of the guilty in cases of atrocities on Dalits and tribals”. He said that at the national level, “this figure is 30-35 percent, while in Gujarat it is only three to five percent, which means that 95 percent of the criminals get away”.