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“Congress has failed to mete out justice to SC/ST”

LUCKNOW: In what is seen by political observers here as a deft political move to consolidate her Dalit vote bank for next year’s Lok Sabha elections, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Friday said that in the last 60 years the Congress has failed to mete out justice to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The Congress has been swept aside in U.P. due to its anti-Dalit approach and it appears that it would be wiped out in the forthcoming elections, she added.

Using an incident involving a Congress MLA, Pankaj Chaudhary, and a Scheduled Caste officer in Muzaffarnagar for sending a strong political message to her Dalit constituents, Ms. Mayawati said even today injustice and atrocities were being perpetrated on the SCs/STs by the Congress. She said the incident reflected ‘anti-SC/ST mentality of the Congress Party’.

Atrocities on the Dalits and poorer sections in Congress-ruled States suggested that the anti-SC/ST mentality of the party had not changed, she claimed.

Ms. Mayawati warned the Congress that the Bahujan Samaj Party government knew how to change this mentality. Once UP’s example of upholding “sarv samaj bhaichara” (social brotherhood) is replicated by other States, the Congress’s anti-Dalit stand would be changed by law, the Chief Minister said at a press conference here.

In Muzaffarnagar on Thursday, District Development Officer Brahma Swaroop was reportedly thrashed by the Congress MLA during a National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme meeting in the Zila Panchayat office. Stating that the guilty would not be spared, Ms. Mayawati indicated that the MLA would be booked under the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Recent political developments, revolving round some crucial issues have apparently triggered a face-off between the Congress and the BSP with the Chief Minister threatening to withdraw support to the UPA Government at the Centre.

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