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Congress alone concerned about Dalits: Makwana

Special Correspondent

They joined mainstream only due to the party

Pondicherry: Yogendra Makwana, chairman of the Scheduled Caste Welfare cell in the AICC, has said the Scheduled Castes (SCs) had always remained with the Congress and that no other party, including the Bahujan Samaj Party and Bharatiya Janata Party, has real concern for the poor and downtrodden.

Addressing a meeting of Congress workers and functionaries of the SC wing, during his visit to Pondicherry on Tuesday, Mr. Makwana said the leaders of the PCC here had initiated several measures for the uplift of the SCs. He said the Congress governments had always enabled the Dalits to join the mainstream. He said that all other parties were doing only lip service whenever they championed the cause of the downtrodden. He said it was the Congress that had recognized the SCs and also conferred on them the right to vote without discrimination.

Mr. Makwana said when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister she had introduced a special component plan earmarking a specific percentage of budget allocations for the SCs and STs exclusively.

AICC secretary K. Jayakumar said he and Mr. Makwana had been touring several parts of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry since Monday to ensure that the Scheduled Castes remained united and remained in the Congress.

PCC president P. Shanmugham said the AICC leader Sonia Gandhi would decide the actual seats the Congress and its allies would get to fight the polls here. He would meet her soon and place before her all the views and suggestions of the functionaries of the different wings of ruling Congress. had presented to him during the last three months on poll strategies. He appealed to the party men to be prepared for any sacrifices.

Congress legislator N. Gangadharan and PCC vice president V. Sabapathy were among those who spoke.

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