Desperate to find lost ground for the Party particularly to intact Dalit vote bank in her home State, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati, will take road to fight for the cause for the members of her community.
Mayawati will visit Saharanpur on Tuesday to personally take first hand account of the clash between Dalits and Thakurs. Finding the dalit politics at its peak in Western Uttar Pradesh over the caste clash and emergence of Bhim Army organization, the local administration in Saharanpur had made all necessary arrangements to ensure peace.
Sources said that the administration so far not gave permission to Mayawati for her visit to the trouble prone locality in Saharanpur. The BSP activists might launch protest if administration restricts former UP chief minister from visiting the village.
``Mayawati would be visiting Shabbirpur village in Baragaon police station area of Saharanpur where the clash between dalit and thakurs took place earlier this month”, confirmed an official release of the Party on Monday. Mayawati along with general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra and zone in-charge Munkad Ali will reach Bhangela check post in Khatauli area where she will be address a meeting there at around 9am, the release confirmed.
It may be mentioned that Mayawati’s visit to the trouble-torn area comes in the
backdrop of the Dalit outfit Bhim Sena staging a massive dharna in Delhi over the issue. The organisation of Dalit youths across seven states in northern India, was founded by a young lawyer Chandrashekhar two years ago, and shot into prominence during the clashes. After the BSP’s drubbing in the recent Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, it will be Mayawati’s first attempt to reach out to her Dalit constituency.Mayawati had last week denounced the Yogi Adityanath government for the clashes alleging that it had failed to fulfil its foremost constitutional duty of providing security to people.
Earlier this month, one person was killed and around 15 were injured as members of different castes clashed over the garlanding of Rajput king Maharana Pratap’s statue. Around 20 to 25 upper caste ‘thakur’ community youths of Shabbirpur village were on their way to attend a function for garlanding the statue of Maharana Pratap organised in Simlana village under Badgaon police station area when Dalit locals objected to playing of loud music, triggering an exchange of heated words. The altercation soon snowballed into a full-blown clash with both groups throwing stones and bricks at each other. A police team somehow pacified the upper-caste youths and asked them to return but they came back with more people to Shabbirpur village and indulged in brick batting and arson, torching 15 to 20 houses of the scheduled castes. As many as 16 people from both sides were injured in the incident. Sumit Rajput (35), who suffered injuries in the violence, died later. Enraged over the killing, an angry mob torched several houses of Dalits in the village and also set afire several police and other vehicles.
Meanwhile reports from Aligarh confirmed that Dalits have threatened to convert to Islam, alleging that the police were targeting them following a clash with upper caste Thakurs over the construction of a drain. Members of the community in Keshopur village in Aligarh had on May 16 clashed with Thakurs. Several persons, mostly Dalits, were injured in the violence, following which police complaints were filed by both sides. The Dalits in the village staged a protest and alleged that the police discriminated against them when it came to taking action. They threatened to convert to Islam “if justice is not done” by Saturday. According to SDM Pankaj Kumar Verma, the incident was being probed “in a fair and an unbiased manner”.
Verma said disputes over drains and water channels are normal in rural areas but “they do not lead to such inter- caste clashes”. “We have appealed to both sides to show restraint and have faith in authorities,” he added.