Disgruntled BJP MP Udit Raj joined the Congress on Wednesday and said his former party could only tolerate a deaf and mute Dalit, not an activist like him who would raise his voice for the cause of the oppressed.
The sitting Lok Sabha member from Northwest Delhi had been demanding an election ticket till Tuesday and had publicly threatened to quit if he wasn’t obliged.
After crossing over to the Congress after meeting party president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday morning, Udit told a media conference: “I am not a hypocrite, I don’t lie. I would have contested on a BJP ticket had they not denied it to me. But they didn’t want me although their internal survey showed that I would win.”
He went on: “They didn’t like me because I was not deaf and mute. I was raising questions against atrocities on Dalits. I supported the Bharat bandh called by Dalit outfits on April 2, 2018. That is my mistake. Had I remained silent, they could have one day made me Prime Minister.”
Udit, who was replaced with singer Hans Raj Hans by the BJP for the Northwest Delhi seat, claimed that Ram Nath Kovind, another Dalit with BJP roots who is now the President, wanted to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and had approached him.
“He came to me and said, ‘Do something for me.’ But he was not considered good enough to be a parliamentarian. But you can see the reward he got for remaining silent, he is the President now,” Udit said.
He asserted that he too could have been like Kovind, but he wanted to be in Parliament only to raise his voice for the most oppressed, not for self-interest.
“I was in touch with the Congress since 2012 but circumstances were such that… Rahulji told me ‘you are in the wrong party’. I said ‘what to do’. I wanted to be in Parliament to use it as a platform to fight for the rights of Dalits. You can check parliamentary records and tell me whether I compromised on issues concerning Dalits and women,” Udit said.
He accused the BJP of “ruining” Dalits and said he was now in a party with which he had “ideological affinity”.
“Only I know how I lived for five years in the BJP. They have done me a favour by denying me a ticket. I am now in the party with which I have ideological affinity. The BJP ruined the Dalits. If their real character is known, no Dalit will ever vote for them. They are misleading Dalits with false propaganda,” Udit said.
Referring to the Stand-Up India scheme, under which the Narendra Modi government offers bank loans to SCs and STs, Udit claimed that only 6 per cent loans had gone to Dalits. “The SC-ST sub-plan made by the Congress was scrapped. They (the BJP government) publicised a Dalit hub worth Rs 490 crore. While Rs 72 crore was spent on publicity, the rest of the amount is unspent,” he claimed.
Udit alleged that the BJP, which made “a hue and cry” about the rights of Muslim women, did not want (gender) equality for Hindu women.
“Unlike other BJP leaders, I never spoke ill of the Congress. I know the Congress has done a lot for Dalits,” he said.
The Congress too linked Udit’s defection to Dalit issues,
Party communications chief Randeep Surjewala said: “The mindset of the RSS-BJP is anti-Dalit. Dalits and tribals never faced this kind of persecution in the past.”
He claimed that the “dilution” of the SC-ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was a consequence of “this deep-rooted prejudice”.
“Modi took revenge on any Dalit or tribal who dared to speak for the oppressed, be it Udit Raj from Delhi, Savitri Bai Phule from Bahraich, Chhote Lal Kharwar from Robertsganj and Ashok Kumar Dohre from Etawah.
“The BJP denied tickets to Chhote Lal Kharwar and another Dalit face from Punjab, Vijay Sampla,” Surjewala added.
Sampla, the sitting MP from Hoshiyarpur, tweeted in response, suggesting that he was as sacred as a cow: “BJP ne gau hatya kar di (The BJP has killed a cow.)”
