Dehradun: Senior Congress leader Harish Rawat on Wednesday said there is no difference between the views of Rahul Gandhi and the architect of India’s Constitution B R Ambedkar on the issue of reservation.
“The Congress believes that as long as there is inequality in the society, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes are deprived, reservation should continue. Baba Saheb also had the same view,” the former Uttarakhand chief minister told a press conference here.
Calling the BJP anti-reservation, he said if reservation faces danger from any quarter, it is from BJP’s fundamentalist thinking.
Rawat said Gandhi answers all kinds of questions on world forums including international universities while, on the contrary, Prime Minister Narendra Modi avoids all this.
“The BJP wants to camouflage this contradiction with its lies, wants to cover it up,” he alleged.
Describing the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Extremely Backward Classes, all types of minorities and women as the most insecure in the country at present, Rawat said all these classes have become insecure due to the communal, intolerant and religious hatred-spreading mindset of the BJP.
It is reflected in the fact that not only minorities are being killed by mob lynching under the guise of so-called cow protectors, but daughters of Dalits and deprived classes are becoming victims of gangrape and also being killed, he said.
Rawat said three Nirbhaya-like incidents have taken place in the state at Shantarshah in Haridwar, ISBT in Dehradun and Lalkuan in Nainital. He also alleged that Dalit daughters have been the victims in 60 per cent of the rape cases in the state.
“The survivors could get the financial help they should have got,” he said.
A sad reality is that BJP leaders are involved in 60 per cent of the rape cases, Rawat said.
In the Lalkuan incident, medical examination was delayed in a planned manner under the influence of those in power so that the evidence gets weakened and the case does not stand in the court.
Rawat said that in the last week of December, he will visit remote areas of Uttarakhand and see the impact of the government’s development schemes there.
“The roads in the state are in a bad condition, they are full of potholes. The PWD has gone defunct in the state. In the name of Jal Jeevan Mission, villages all over Uttarakhand have been dug up. Water has not come in the taps but potholes have come up everywhere,” he said.
Warning the state government, he said he will also make videos during his visit and share them on social media.
During his tour, he will also visit the assembly constituencies declared as reserved in the state and will try to know from residents why the Congress lost from seats like Rajpur, Gangolihat, Someshwar, Bageshwar, Purola, Nainital, Pauri and Ghansali in the last assembly polls.
“We always considered these areas special from the point of view of development and made plans for them. Still why did we lose?” he asked.
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