Congress: Poor and weak being crushed in Gujarat

ASSISTANCE: Rahul visits Dalit home, announces aid of Rs 5 lakh

UNA, Saurashtra: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday came down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that in his home state, the weak and the poor were being crushed, even as he visited the home of a Dalit man whose four sons were brutally flogged on July 11 for skinning a dead cow.

Gandhi, who flew into Diu, and from there drove straight to the home of Babubhai Sarvaiya in Samadhiyala village of Una, announced assistance of Rs 5 lakh for the family.

“I met those families and that mother whose sons were beaten up by 40 people. The father told me that they don’t see any future ahead for them. He was saying that in Modi’s Gujarat we are daily beaten up and crushed,” Gandhi told reporters at Rajkot airport while leaving Gujarat in the evening.

He said in the country, “this is the fight between two ideologies. On one side there are Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel, Ambedkar and on the other side there are RSS, Golwalkar and Modi ji.”

“Whoever raises his voice against this ideology, irrespective of any section, whoever fights for education, whoever was challenging the big corporate, is crushed. I told that mother that she doesn’t need to fear. The people of Gujarat and Congress party are with them,” he continued.

At Rajkot, he met Dalit youths who had attempted suicide in protest and are in hospital. Gandhi was accompanied by

the party’s Gujarat affairs incharge Gurudas Kamat, state Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki and other party leaders here as well as the party’s Dalit leader Kumari Selja.

“A few days back a video was watched by entire India. I also watched it. Some time back I went to Hyderabad where one youth had committed suicide. The Delhi-based (Central) government attacked his family. It attacked those youths who were seeking their right. Today I visited Gujarat where 11 persons have in separate cases attempted suicide,” the Congress leader said, and added that nobody seemed to have a right to speak.

“This means that in entire Gujarat, those who are weak, whether they are from any section, those who are poor, are being crushed,” he asserted.

Scores of people thronged Samadhiyala village in Una taluka (tehsil) of Gir-Somnath district as the Congress leader spent time in the village.

While freely interacting with them, Gandhi asked Jitu Sarvaiya, Babubhai’s nephew, if this was the first time or they had been suffering caste discrimination for long. “There was nothing new in this, this is quite normal,” Sarvaiya said.

Gandhi sat with the family and held Babubhai Sarvaiya’s hand as they all became emotional. The Congress Vice President shared tea with the Dalit family.