Congress, BSP, SP fanning Dalit violence: Prasad

New Delhi, April 8: Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Sunday accused the Congress, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) of fanning Dalit violence in various parts of the country for political gains. “Bhimrao Ambedkar said Dalit movement should not be violent. But some parties like the Congress, the SP, the BSP are fanning Dalit violence in a calculated manner for political gains,” Prasad told the media here.

The senior BJP leader said the Congress’ “new found” love for Ambedkar was opportunistic as the party hardly cared for him. He also accused the BSP of deserting Ambedkar’s and another Dalit leader Kanshi Ram’s ideals and making the BSP a family party that “hardly cares for Dalits and their emancipation”. “Ambedkar died in 1956 but the successive Congress government did not bother to confer him with Bharat Rat. It was only in 1989 that the V.P. Singh government backed by the BJP conferred the honour on him,” he said. He said the opposition’s allegations that the Modi government was trying to dilute the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was far from the truth as the Bharatiya Jata Party (BJP), after coming to power at the Centre in 2014, worked to strengthen the said Act. “We have made very crucial changes to the SC/ST Act to make it more stringent and to plug the gaps,” he said.

The Law Minister clarified that the Union government was neither a party nor was it called for a counter affidavit in the case where the Supreme Court passed an order that an accused need not be arrested under the SC/ST Act without a prelimiry inquiry. “Only the Attorney General was called for his opinion as the matter pertained to a central legislation,” Prasad said. The Supreme Court on March 20 said the arrest of an accused under the SC/ST Act is not mandatory and recourse to coercive action would be only after prelimiry inquiry and sanction by the competent authority. Prasad also pointed out that it was the BJP that has made Ram th Kovind — a Dalit — the President of India. (IANS)