Telangana: BRS Purification Ritual At Dalits’ Protest Site Sparks Controversy
BRS leaders cleaned the roads with water and sprinkled turmeric water at places where Dalits had conducted a Dappu Yatra against the BRS: Reports
SIDDIPET: A purification ritual conducted by BRS leaders after a Dalit and Congress protest near BRS president and K. Chandrashekar Rao’s farmhouse at Erravalli in Siddipet district has triggered controversy.
BRS leaders cleaned the roads with water and sprinkled turmeric water at places where Dalits had conducted a Dappu Yatra against the BRS over alleged abusive language used by BRS MLCs against assembly speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar, a Dalit.
Within hours of the protest, BRS leaders, including women, conducted the purification ritual near Erravalli on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The ritual drew objections from the Mala and Madiga Scheduled Castes organisations after videos of it went viral on social media. Following the objections, BRS leaders halted the ritual on the route to the former chief minister’s farmhouse.
BRS supporters also burnt an effigy of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on Wednesday and raised slogans against him over the registration of cases against them. They said the agitation against the Congress government would continue and raised “KCR zindaad” slogans.
Congress leader and Madiga Mala Sanghala JAC chairman Devani Satish Madiga alleged that Chandrashekar Rao and his BRS workers had discriminated against members of the Madiga and Mala communities.
After members of the Madiga and Mala communities conducted the Dappu Yatra from Varadarajpalli village to KCR’s farmhouse, BRS workers claimed that the farmhouse road had been “polluted” and conducted a purification ritual by sprinkling turmeric water on it, he said.
Satish said a zero FIR had been registered at Saifabad police station against KCR and BRS workers in connection with the incident. He said that the 125-foot-tall statue of Dr BR Ambedkar, which had been touched by KCR, would be symbolically purified with milk on September 10. He urged chief minister Revanth Reddy to provide a crane for the programme at the 125-foot Ambedkar statue.
