Hyderabad: In view of Dalit Leader and Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani’s Hyderabad visit indicated the launch of a national alliance for the upliftment of Dalits. Whereas recently the issues of atrocities against Dalits has once again come to the forefront in the fallout of violence in Mumbai and other districts of Maharashtra during the 200th-anniversary celebrations of the battle of Bhima-Koregoan.
The Gujarat legislator said that he along with other like-minded people is planning to launch the alliance for Dalits soon. The most important work to be undertaken by the alliance is to provide land to the landless Dalits, reported oneindia.
Mr Madiga, founder of the Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi, was arrested recently during a protest for Scheduled Caste categorisation.
Jignesh Mevani said, “In the coming days, I, along with Krishna Madiga and other Dalit, progressive, like-minded groups, want to launch a broad alliance for the upliftment of Dalits.”
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The newly-elected Gujarat legislator termed the death of University of Hyderabad scholar Rohith Vemula as “an institutional murder” and said that Vemula, had he been alive, would have joined him to meet Madiga.
Rohith Vemula had committed suicide in a hostel room on the varsity campus on January 16, 2016. Mr Mevani appealed to the Telangana government to release Mr Madiga and termed his arrest as a curtailment of his fundamental rights.
“I appeal to the state government (Telangana) and police to release him immediately. He is struggling for the fundamental rights of his community. Individual liberty should not be curtailed this way,” he said.
— (With inputs from PTI)