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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Giridih (PTI): The death toll in the accident in Jharkhand's Giridih, wherein a truck rammed into parked vehicles a day ago, rose to five with another person succumbing to injuries during treatment at a hospital in Dhanbad, police said on Saturday.
The incident occurred on Friday evening at the main market within the Nimiyaghat police station limits, killing four people on the spot. Officials claimed the truck was being driven at a high speed, and the person at the wheel was in an inebriated state.
"One more person died during treatment at a hospital in Dhanbad late on Friday night. The deceased is yet to be identified," said Suman Kumar, the officer in charge of Naimyaghat police station.
The four who died on the spot were identified as Md Irshad (45), Sujeet Kumar (37), Ranjeet Kumar (33), and Santosh Kumar Mahto (27), all natives of Giridi. Seven people sustained injuries.
The truck was seized, and its driver has been held, the officer in charge of the Naimyaghat police station said.
Enraged locals put up a blockade on the Dumri-GT Road for two hours and demanded compensation for the kin of the victim. They also demanded no entry for heavy vehicles in the market at night.
Giridih's Deputy Commissioner Ramniwas Yadav inspected the accident spot and met those who were injured in the accident.
"The injured are undergoing treatment at different hospitals. I have directed the department concerned to prepare a detailed report on what led to the accident," he said.
