Bengaluru: Jignesh Mevani, Independent MLA from Gujarat and Dalit rights activist has raised a clarion call against the BJP, claiming that he would appeal to the Dalit community not to vote for the party. “Mr. Modi claims to have honoured B.R. Ambedkar. But, the reality is that he has done the most insult to Ambedkar and his ideas,”said Mevani.

While an injury would keep Mevani away from campaigning for the Assembly elections in Karnataka, he said he would raise the anti-BJP pitch in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan which are due for elections later this year.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a protest held in the city on Wednesday against the Supreme Court’s order, Mr. Mevani said the intentions of the BJP-led government at the Centre on the issue “did not seem right”.

“When the Advocate-General received a notice on the case, he did not respond in detail, nor did they highlight the atrocities and socio-economic conditions (of Dalits and adivasis). It is only when lakhs of people from the Dalit communities took to the streets in protest, and it hit the BJP that there will be electoral consequences that they filed a review petition,” he said.

Mr. Mevani termed the Supreme Court order on the SC/ST Atrocities Act, 1989 as “unconstitutional” and “encroached” on the jurisdiction of Parliament. “In case the review petition is rejected, we have to see whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP-led government at the Centre will bring in an Ordinance to protect this special legislation like they had contemplated to do with triple talaq,” he said.

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Tiruchirappalli (PTI): A Bengaluru bound Air India Express flight with about 137 passengers made an "emergency landing," here following a technical glitch, sources at the airport said.

The Thiruvananthapuram-Bengaluru service suffered the glitch mid-air, following which it made the safe landing here, the sources added.

All the passengers disembarked the flight and the technical crew was attending to the fault.

An Air India Express spokesperson said the flight "was diverted to Tiruchirappalli due to a technical issue."

"A replacement aircraft is being organised to operate the flight to Bengaluru. We are providing all administrative arrangements and regret the inconvenience caused to the travel schedule (of passengers)," the spokesperson added.