Dalits humiliated during Congress’ rule, says Saini

Mounting a fresh attack on the Congress, chief minister Nayab Singh Saini on Tuesday said it was an “anti-Dalit” party and there was no need to remind the Dalits of Haryana how “dangerous” and “violent” was Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s rule for them. Saini also alleged that the Congress has humiliated and despised everyone from BR Ambedkar to a Dalit woman leader, an apparent reference to Kumari Selja who had been keeping away from the Congress poll campaign.

His attack on the Congress comes a day after Union home minister Amit Shah termed the grand old party as “anti-Dalit”, and said it “insulted” Dalit leaders like Selja and Ashok Tanwar. In a post in Hindi on X, Saini said, “You don’t ask the taste of iron from someone whose feet have been hammered with nails for years! There is no need to tell the Dalits of Haryana how dangerous and violent the rule of Congress and Hooda was for the Dalits, whose nightmares haunt them even today.”In all the cases of Dalit oppression, there was clear connivance or silent support of the Hooda government.”

He also referred to the Gohana and Mirchpur incidents during the Congress regime in the state. “Just because a dog barked, a Dalit girl who was going to become an officer was burnt alive in Mirchpur. Whether that horrific scene is in Gohana or Mirchpur or Bhagana, all these dark dates in the calendar will be found during the rule of Hooda,” he said.

In the Gohana incident that took place around two decades ago, a few homes of Dalits were set on fire after a Dalit in the village was suspected of being involved in a murder.

In the Mirchpur incident, on April 21, 2010, a group of villagers had allegedly torched more than a dozen houses belonging to Dalits. A teenage girl and her father were charred to death in the incident.

Saini charged, “The conduct of Congress is anti-Dalit. They have humiliated and despised everyone from Baba Saheb Ambedkar to Babu Jagjivan Ram, Sitaram Kesri, Ashok Tanwar and now a Dalit woman leader.”

Selja was learnt to be upset after the Congress gave a free hand to her bete noire and former chief minister Hooda in ticket distribution, with most candidates who got the tickets being his loyalists. Hooda’s loyalists had also been accommodated on the majority of the 17 seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs).

The BJP has been trying to woo Selja, who has asserted that she is a “Congressi”. The chief minister also attacked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over the issue of reservation.

“Congress leader Rahul Gandhi openly says from foreign soil that reservation for Dalits and deprived people has to be abolished. Actually this is his old hereditary mentality,” he said.

Gandhi, during his interaction with students of the Georgetown University in the US, had said the Congress would think of scrapping reservations when “India is a fair place”, which he said is not the case right now.

The 90-member Haryana Assembly is scheduled to go to polls on October 5 and the counting of votes will be undertaken on October 8.