MP SAVITRI BAI PHULE RESIGNS FROM THE BJP

Lucknow:bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’S Parliament member from Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich, Savitri Bai Phule, 37, on Thursday resigned from the party over the alleged neglect of her Dalit community’s issues.

Phule told HT that several other BJP Parliament members from Other Backward Class (OBC) and Dalit communities were in touch with her and may follow suit.

Phule has been at loggerheads with the BJP leadership. She held a rally in Lucknow on April 2 and accused the BJP of conspiring to abolish reservations for Dalits and OBCS in education and employment.

“There is a conspiracy to end reservation but we will not allow it. Also, the party [BJP] is busy talking about temples and wasting money on statues when the same could have been better used for providing jobs and education to the marginalised communities,” she said on Tuesday.

She had earlier slammed the BJP government in UP for failing to control repeated attacks on Dalit icon BR Ambedkar’s statues. Phule, who chose Ambedkar’s death anniversary for her resignation, is expected to announce her next political move at a rally in Lucknow on December 23. “We are expecting two lakh people at the rally,” said Phule’s aide, Ranjeet Kumar.

BJP’S Uttar Pradesh general secretary, Vijay Bahadur Pathak, reacted to Phule’s resignation by insisting that the party has always been championing the Dalit cause. “It is not for nothing that today we have maximum Dalit assembly and Parliament members and our support among Dalits is growing,” he said.

Phule attacked the BJP later at a press conference in Lucknow. “I have been raising the Dalit issues in Lok Sabha since 2014, but since I come from a marginalised community, my voice was always ignored. That is why I have decided to quit the party. I have raised the same issues in the state capital too.”