Team Clarion
NEW DELHI – Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party’s governments in Odisha and Madhya Pradesh over the assault on tribal women in Balasore and the custodial death of Dalit youth in Dewas.
In a post on social media, Gandhi said that the Congress would not tolerate these “shameful and highly condemnable” incidents. The party will continue to fight for the rights of “Bahujans” and get justice for them.
“On one hand, a Dalit youth was killed in police custody in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh. On the other hand, tribal women were tied to trees and beaten in Balasore, Odisha,” he stated in a post in Hindi on X while posting screenshots of the reports on both incidents.
A video of two tribal women being tied to a tree and assaulted in Balasore over the allegation of conversion has gone viral on social media on Sunday. On Saturday, the death of a 35-year-old Dalit man Mukesh Longre inside a police station in Madhya Pradesh’s Dewas district triggered protests from his kin who alleged murder, while the opposition Congress on Sunday slammed the Mohan Yadav-led BJP government for running a “jungle raj” in the state.
“Both these incidents are sad, shameful and highly condemnable. Due to the Manuvadi thinking of the BJP, such incidents are happening one after another in the states ruled by them – this is not possible without the support of the government,” Gandhi said.
“Such barbarism against the Bahujans of the country will not be tolerated at any cost. We are with them, we will fight with full force for their constitutional rights and to get them justice,” the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha said in his post.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also alleged that the “insult of Babasaheb Ambedkar and oppression on weaker sections is the basic mantra of BJP’s rule”. The death of a Dalit youth in police custody in Dewas is extremely serious, she noted.
“The family alleges that the youth died due to police brutality. Earlier, there was news of atrocities on Dalit families and the death of a Dalit youth in police custody from Parbhani, Maharashtra. It seems that under the BJP rule, the police have got a free hand to oppress the weaker sections like Dalits, Adivasis and the deprived,” she said.