Bengaluru: Launching a tirade against state BJP leaders for wooing Dalits ahead of the Assembly polls in 2018, Congress leaders, including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, on Friday charged that these leaders by buying hotel food and eating it at Dalit homes, have found a new way of practising the varna system.
Addressing a joint press conference at the KPCC office here, Siddaramaiah said Dalit atrocities were rising across the country under the present dispensation headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The BJP's new found love for Dalits was not genuine nor did it come from the heart. According to national crime bureau records, Dalit atrocity cases during the rule of the Congress led UPA government stood at 32,000 plus cases but now it has seen a quantum leap to 58,000 plus cases," he rationalised.
Siddaramaiah wondered angrily if the BJP leaders’ ‘political drama’ of visiting Dalit homes would erase sad memories like the crimes against Dalits at Una and Saharanpur and the suicide of research scholar Rohit Vemula. Training his guns on BJP state president B.S. Yeddyurappa, Siddaramaiah claimed that his visit to the houses of Dalits and having food there, was nothing but an act of hypocrisy and a drama. "These days Yeddyurappa has started speaking about Dalits. In his life, he has never favoured Dalits, even when he was chief minister," he charged.
It may be recalled that as part of his drought study tour across the state, Yeddyurappa was recently in Chitradurga where he along with other leaders had breakfast at a Dalit’s house. It was alleged that the former chief minister had breakfast brought from a nearby hotel instead of home-made food, drawing flak from both Congress and JD(S) leaders.
