New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government's advisory to the electronic media not to use the word "Dalit" has run into opposition from within the ruling coalition, with a junior minister and a BJP MP both disagreeing with the move.

A senior BJP leader and MP from Uttar Pradesh added to the party's discomfort, saying the recently strengthened law on prevention of atrocities against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was being "misused" and should be reviewed.

The twin views appeared to have put the BJP in a spot ahead of year-end elections in three party-ruled states.

The I&B ministry had on August 7 written to the News Broadcasters Association and the Indian Broadcasting Foundation - bodies of TV channels - conveying a June 6 directive from the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court asking the government to direct the media not to use the word "Dalit".

On Tuesday, junior social justice minister Ramdas Athawale and BJP MP Udit Raj disagreed with the advisory, saying the word signified a class of people who were oppressed.

"It is not about the Scheduled Castes. Dalit also includes people who are oppressed. People who are socially and economically backward," Athawale, who heads the Republican Party of India, a BJP ally, told reporters.

He recalled that he was part of the "Dalit Panthers movement" and stressed that the Scheduled Castes didn't find anything wrong in calling themselves "Dalits".

Raj, the BJP MP from Delhi, said: "The term 'Dalit' is widely used and accepted. An advisory is fine but it should not be made compulsory."

The term, he told reporters, has become a matter of pride for SCs after the April 2 agitation against the Supreme Court's verdict that had diluted the SC-ST law.

Against this backdrop, Kalraj Mishra, former minister and MP from Deoria, Uttar Pradesh, spoke against the government's recent move to make the law stringent again by passing a bill in Parliament.

Mishra, a Brahmin, claimed the law was being misused and there was large-scale resentment among people. "All the parties should get together and make amendments to the bill so that no section is harassed," he said.

Mishra claimed that all members of a Brahmin family in Faizabad were arrested recently in a "false" case. "Innocent people are being harassed. The government and all other parties should take cognisance of this," he said.

The criticism comes at a time the BJP is already worried over reports from poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh about protests by upper and even backward-caste people against the SC-ST law.

In Madhya Pradesh, leaders of the BJP and even the Congress are not being allowed to canvass and address public meetings at many places.

The protesters have called a strike on December 6 and asked the "general castes" to boycott the elections by choosing the none-of-the-above option.