Dalit man alleges attack by BJP men

Vadodara: Ambedkar Jayanti celebrations briefly turned sour in the city on Friday when a Congress member from the Dalit community was allegedly attacked by BJP workers when he rushed to garland the statue of Dr BR Ambedkar at the Race Course Circle.

The worker Mitesh Parmar has been making representations seeking an Ambedkar Memorial at Sankalp Bhoomi in Kamatibaug where Babasaheb had resolved to fight for equality.

The BJP-ruled Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) had organized a programme to garland the statue at 8.30am. As per tradition, the mayor garlands the statue first followed by others. The scheduled caste (SC) wing of the BJP had also organized a rally on the occasion and reached the venue where a platform with steps had been erected near the statue.

Parmar went to garland the statue but was prevented by security personnel as well as BJP workers. While Parmar managed to garland the statue, he was pushed around by BJP workers and, according to Parmar, was also beaten up.

Parmar was detained by the police and taken to the Gotri police station. At the police station, Parmar complained of giddiness and his aides rushed him to the GMERS Hospital at Gotri. From there he was referred to the SSG Hospital and admitted there.

According to Parmar, he had been garlanding the statue early since the last couple of years and there was never an issue. “But this time, the BJP workers abused me and asked me to go. They punched, kicked and threw me down the stairs. Before that, I somehow garlanded the statue,” he said.

City unit BJP president and Vadodara MP Ranjan Bhatt, who was present at the venue, said that they had, in fact, asked security personnel to allow Parmar to garland the statue. “However, he did not do so when he given an opportunity before everyone else. He waited for the mayor and others to start moving towards the stairs and stood in their way. Neither did he want to garland the statue himself nor was he allowing others,” Bhatt said.

Bhatt said that the police had to pull Parmar out of the staircase and some party workers too tried to do so. “Our SC Morcha workers too were peeved at the incident. If Parmar wanted to raise the issue of the memorial, it was the wrong time to do so. Everybody had gathered to remember the luminary who gave us our constitution and the programme should not have been disrupted in such a way. Parmar had already raised the issue earlier at the VMC headquarters and could have done so again after the event,” Bhatt said.

The city BJP chief also slammed the Congress stating that it was playing politics on the issue. “Why do they remember the memorial only when his birth anniversary arrives? Throughout the year, they never spoke about it,” she said.

A security guard of the VMC also submitted an application to the Gotri police station alleging that Parmar had created a ruckus at the venue. They accused Parmar of obstructing them from exercising their duties.

Source: The Times of India