Etawah, April 6: Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) parliamentarian from Etawah Ashok Kumar Dohrey  has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention into cases of discrimination against dalits post April 2 protest by dalit community against the Supreme Court verdict on SC/ST Act. On April 3 another BJP parliamentarian Chhote Lal Kharwar from Robertsganj wrote a letter to PM accusing Uttar Pradesh (UP) Chief Minister (CM) Yogi Adityanath and other BJP leader of harassing him because of his caste.

As reported by The Times of India, the Member of Parliament (MP) from Etawah accused UP police of discriminating against dalits and said that cases are being registered against dalits post April 2 agitation. Dohrey even accused police of pulling dalits out of their place and beating them. According to the report of the Times of India, Dohrey said,”Casteist comments were also being hurled at them,” He also demanded action against police officials.

Earlier Chhote lal Kharwar in his letter to PM Modi and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan alleged District Magistrate and Divisional Forest Officer of Chandauli district of UP of harassing him. He has also filed a complaint to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

These two cases surfaced in the media after Dalit organisation, Ambedkar Mahasabha’s president Lalji Prasad Nirmal announced to confer ‘Dalit Mitra’ award on UP CM Yogi Adityanath on Ambedkar Jayanti on April 14. After this announcement Annual General Meeting (AGM) has been called by the founding two founding members Harish Chandra and SR Darapuri of Ambedkar Mahasabha for initiating disciplinary action against Lalji Prasad Nirmal. Meanwhile Nirmal refused to budge from his stand. According to a report published in the New Indian Express, Nirmal said that there was nothing wrong in conferring the `Dalit Mitra’ award on CM Yogi who was a friend of everyone living in UP.

In another controversy The UP government has decided to add Ramji as middle name to Babasaheb Ambedkar’s name in all reference to him in official state documents. This move can be seen as portraying Ambedkar as a Hindu icon by highlighting his father’s name ‘Ramji’. In May 2017 also there was a mass attack on dalits in Shabbipur village of Saharanpur, UP in which 1 person was killed.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 06, 2018 10:34 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).