The issue of atrocities against Dalits continued to resonate inside and outside Parliament, with Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati demanding a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue.
Speaking outside Parliament, she said atrocities against Dalits were going up “day by day”, mentioning the Una incident in Gujarat and another in Maharashtra where two Dalit boys were beaten up after they overtook another vehicle.
“In Uttar Pradesh, this is going on a bigger scale. Such incidents are happening all over the country after the BJP came to power,” she said. “When these are occurring on a regular basis across the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi should not keep silent,” she said.
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“It seems that he has no concern over the incidents. We were expecting that Mr. Modi would definitely say something on the Gujarat incident, but he did not,” she said.
In the Lok Sabha, Chirag Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party, an ally of the ruling NDA, spoke about two Dalit youths who were allegedly thrashed and urinated upon in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district. Alleging that the State government failed to act on a series of atrocities against Dalits in Darbhanga and Kishanganj, Mr. Paswan demanded a CBI investigation into the cases.