TPCC chief and Nalgonda MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy today said that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had continuously cheated the Dalits of Telangana after becoming CM partly due to the community's support.
Speaking at a meeting organised by the TPCC SC Cell and the Dalitha Avedana Deeksha to protest against the atrocities committed against the SCs in the state, Reddy asked, "What happened to KCR's promise of appointing a Dalit CM? Why is the largest community in Telangana, the Madiga community, which forms 12% of the population of the state, not represented in the Cabinet? The Cabinet does not even have a single Madiga minister. And now, the state has even witnessed the brutal torture of a Dalit woman and her son in police custody. The incident is utterly shocking."
"When leaders of the Congress
met KCR to submit a memorandum about the death of the Dalit woman Mariyamma who was tortured by the police, he told them that he was not aware of the incident. This is a blatant lie as the state's high court had already ordered a judicial probe into the matter. The comment reveals the overall injustice and apathy the Dalit community in Telangana has to contend with. It is condemnable that the Addagudur police indulged in such heinous behaviour. How dare the police kill a Dalit woman at a police station? It is clear that they were able to do this as they feel that the government will support them no matter what. The KCR government and the entire Cabinet should apologise to the people for allowing such a thing to happen," the leader added.
Talking about KCR's upcoming meeting with the Dalit representatives of various political outfits, scheduled to take place tomorrow, Reddy claimed that the CM had no right to organise such a meeting while forgetting all about the promises he had made to the Dalits before this.
"Where the Dalit community has been continually cheated by the TRS regime, I wonder how the CM can call for a meeting on empowering the group. People are laughing at the statements the CM has been making on Dalit empowerment. The meeting is being organised now as the matter of the recent lock-up death needs to be dealt with. However, it is not only Mariyamma who suffered at the hands of the state's administration. Other Dalit persons, including Narasimhulu, Rajababu and Rangaiah, also lost their lives due to the highhandedness of the police force and the upper caste groups in the state," he alleged.
Faulting the BJP for criticising the Congress for submitting a memorandum to the CM on Mariyamma's death, he said that leaders who frequently changed political parties had no right to flay his party's decisions and actions.
The TPCC head then highlighted the Congress' commitment to the cause of social justice, and pointed out that, unlike the TRS, his party had appointed Damodaram Sanjeevaiah, a Dalit leader, as the Andhra Pradesh CM in the '60s.
AICC SC Cell chairman Nitin Rawat also spoke at the meeting and assured the Dalits that the Congress would fight on their behalf. He also called upon the people of the state to oust the TRS government from office.
Congress MLAs Jagga Reddy and Sridhar Babu, former PCC head Ponnala Lakshmaiah, AICC official spokesperson Dasoju Sravan, and former minister J Geetha Reddy were among the party leaders who participated in the program.