PM’s anguish on Dalit atrocities cuts no ice with Oppn

The BSP, SP and the Congress said his anguish about atrocities against Dalits was not real. 

Congress MPs created an uproar in the Lok Sabha on Monday, saying he should “not shed crocodile tears” but “act”. Congress members demanded that the Prime Minister speak on the issue in the House rather than “tweet”. They staged a walkout later.

Soon after the Zero Hour, Congress members stormed the Well of the House when Speaker Sumitra Mahajan did not immediately allow party leader Mallikarjun Karge to raise the issue. Congress members were unrelenting and demanded that the Prime Minister come to the House and speak on 

the issue.

“PM Modi and the BJP kept quiet for two years. How have their eyes opened now? Uttar Pradesh and other states have elections soon, and they knew that Dalit people are not going to vote for them, that’s why the statement has come,” BSP chief Mayawati said.

The BSP supremo was referring to the PM’s long silence after the atrocities against the Dalit community in Una, the suicide of a Dalit scholar in Hyderabad University, and other similar cases. The Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav accused the PM of political opportunism.

“Now that he sees that it’s going to cost him, then he brings the (dalit) issue to the forefront,” said Akhilesh, Uttar Pradesh chief minister. “His realisation has come late, but now maybe he understands how much harm is being done in India,” he added.

In an outreach to Dalits against the backdrop of the Una flogging incident, Modi, at an event in Telangana, on Sunday decried the attempts to politicise the issue of atrocities on Dalits and said he is ready to get “shot and attacked” in place of his Dalit “brothers”.