Congress flays PM Modi for eroding Ambedkar’s legacy

Congress MP and former union Minister Kumari Selja on Saturday flayed Prime Minister Modi for usurping and eroding the legacy of Dr B R Ambedkar by simply paying lip service to him.

She also ridiculed him for breaking his silence with just two lines, but not a word on involvement of his own BJP leaders in the two rape cases in the news, one its MLA and another its two ministers. She reminded him about big advertisements on women his party used to once splash.

Taking up cudgels against the government on the day of Ambedkar's birth anniversary, she dismissed Modi's talk on reservations, reminding him that it were the RSS ideologues who had put a question mark on the reservations and repeatedly sought tinkering with the Constitution drafted under his leadership.

She told a Press conference that if the Modi government were so committed towards Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, it would not have finished the SC-ST sub-plan introduced in the Budget during Indira Gandhi era.

"We (SCs) constitute 16% of the population, but this government provides just 5.5% for the SCs in the 2018-19 budget," Selja said, pointing out that the schemes for SCs have been reduced and the backlog of the SCs in the government not filled wondering if this is the commitment for Dalits that the PM was talking.