Nothing done for Dalits: BJP MP
Yashwant Singh writes to PM, alleges courts chipping away at Dalit rights due to a lack of representation in the judiciary
NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh BJP parliamentarian Yashwant Singh accused his own government at the Centre of doing nothing in four years for Dalits, as he ratcheted up growing dissent among the scheduled castes after an alleged dilution of a law protecting them.
He said in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that Dalit MPS like him in the ruling party are victims of atrocities against scheduled castes and it has become difficult for them to answer to the community.
“When I got elected, I met you to request for the passage of the bill to provide reservation in promotion.
Several organisations of the community make such pleas to us day and night. But your government has not done a single work for the direct benefit of about 300 million Dalits,” the MP for Nagina constituency wrote.
Singh, a qualified physician from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, said in the letter: “Being a Dalit my capabilities have not been put to use.
I only became an MP because of reservation.”
The first-time parliamentarian is the fourth scheduled caste MP from India’s most populous state to red-flag the government on Dalits in less than a week — after Savitri Bai Phule, Chhotelal and Ashok Dohre, representing Bahraich, Roberstganj and Etawah constituencies respectively.
UP has 17 Lok Sabha seats reserved for scheduled castes (SC) and the BJP won all of them in the 2014 parliamentary elections. SCS constitute over 22% of the state’s population.
Singh’s letter signals a growing discomfort among Dalit MPS of the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), disturbed with a series of events, that latest being a Supreme Court order that allegedly had whittled down safeguards guaranteed by the SC/ST atrocities act to the marginalised communities.
The top court order triggered Dalit nationwide protests, which were marred by violence that led to the death of about a dozen people. The MPS fear that
› When I got elected, I met you to request for the passage of the bill to provide reservation in promotion. Several organisations of the community make such pleas to us day and night YASHWANT SINGH, in letter to PM
marginalisation of Dalits could affect the BJP’S prospects in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Singh alleged that courts were chipping away at the rights of Dalits because the community has no representation in the judiciary. “70% of India’s wealth is with 1% of its population, which enjoys patronage of the government,” he wrote.
According to party leaders, the views expressed by the Dalit MPS could mean something else. “Some of them are probably looking for new avenues, fearing that they will be denied tickets in 2019,” said a BJP leader associated with party affairs in UP.
Another leader, who also refused to be identified, said Phule, Dohare and Singh don’t have a Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) background and could be laying the ground to return to “our rival parties”.
A Dalit MP of the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), who doesn’t want to be named, said Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati set the cat among the pigeons by supporting arch-rival Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party in the bypolls to the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats in UP. “The two makes a formidable opposition in UP,” the parliamentarian said.
The two parties have hinted that they might forge an alliance in 2019, considered a worrying prospect for Dalit MPS of the BJP.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) contested 403 seats in the 2017 assembly elections and polled 1.93 crore votes, while the Samajwadi Party fielded candidates in 311 seats and got 1.90 crore votes.
The BJP’S tally was 3.44 crore votes in 384 seats.
What do Ashok Doharey, Chhotelal Kharwar, Yashwant Singh and Savitri Bai Phule have in common?
They are all Dalit members of Parliament from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who have spoken out against the party for not doing enough to protect their community. All of them are also first-time MPS from Uttar Pradesh, where the government of Yogi Adityanath has increasingly come under attack for discriminating against Dalits.
On Saturday, Yashwant Singh became the latest to raise his voice. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the 56-year-old MP from Nagina in western UP, accused the Bjpled National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government of “doing nothing for the 30 crore Dalits of the country.”
Phule became the first Janta Party (BJP parliamentarian to espouse the cause of the Dalits last week when she said the government’s stance on a Supreme Court order banning automatic arrests and registration of cases