K Raju: Saffronisation of Dalits a concern

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 10

K Raju, AICC national coordinator for SC, ST, OBC and minority departments, on Sunday said the Uttar Pradesh elections had revealed how the Dalit sub identity had been subsumed by the Hindu identity and saffronisation of Scheduled Castes in India continued. He said the UP elections also evidenced that SCs were fragmented.

Mere projection of SC CM face not enough

Mere projection of an SC CM face was not enough, the govt commitment to SC cause also needed to have been demonstrable. — K Raju on why Cong’ Channi experiment failed in Punjab

Speaking after the launch of the Penguin publication titled “The Dalit Truth: The Battles for Realizing Ambedkar’s Vision”, a compilation of essays on Dalit struggles, by Rahul Gandhi yesterday, Raju said “saffronisation of Dalits is a matter of concern”.

He urged SC organisations to unite and work for the realisation of their constitutional rights and entitlements.

He said Dalit groups needed to come together to assume the force of a political pressure group, as they consisted of 25 per cent of the population.

On a query about why Congress’ SC card of projecting Charanjit Channi as the CM face did not work in Punjab, Raju said, “Before Channi was installed, the government that had been in power for four years had not done much to meet the aspirations of Dalits.

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