Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday appealed to the Maoist youth to shun their guns and join the mainstream for development in which the government would protect their rights.
“I would like to ask the youth on the path of violence that the Constitution takes care of your rights. It is the government’s duty to protect your rights. You need not pick arms and destroy your lives,” Modi said while addressing a function on the occasion of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s birth anniversary when he launched the “Ayushman Bharat” in Bijapur, Chhattisgarh.
Under the scheme, he inaugurated the first of the 150,000 health and wellness centre the government aims to set up by 2022 that will focus on on comprehensive primary healthcare for preventive, promotive and curative care.
Modi said people behind the violent activities were from outside the state and it was they who were responsible for the death of local youths.
“None of their chiefs is from your area. They have come from outside your state. If you read their names, surnames, you will understand who they are. They do not die. They hide safely in the jungles. They send your children in front to face the bullet. Would you leave your children behind such people,” the prime minister said.
“The government is duty-bound to ensure school education to children and remuneration to agriculture produce,” he said.
Stating that the security personnel risk their lives for the smooth functioning of schools and construction of roads, Modi appealed to the people of Chhattisgarh to follow the path of development.
He also appealed to the people from the backward districts to join a mass movement with a different approach laced with information technology for the transformation.
Modi said over 100 districts in the country including Chattisgarh’s Bijapur remained backward even after 70 years of independence.
“If the district administration, the public representatives and the people join hands in a mass movement, then unprecedented results can be achieved. There will be no change with the old ways. If we have new targets, we need new ways,” Modi said.
He said the government was working with a different approach on the 115 backward districts, which are labelled as “aspirational and ambitious districts”.
“Each district faces its own challenges, and therefore, a different strategy is required in each case,” he said.
Modi said the issue of regional imbalance can be achieved through various types of connectivity through road, railway, air and information technology.
The prime minister said the Dalit icon was instrumental in getting people from backward class their rights.
“A person from a backward class like me could become the prime minister because of Dr Babsaheb Ambedkar,” he said.
However, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati lashed out at Modi and said his words and the acts of his Bharatiya Janata Party about Dalit welfare and respect for Ambedkar was a sham.
The four-time Uttar Pradesh chief minister also charged Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath with “abject failure” in maintaining law and order in the northern state.
“Both Modi and Yogi have done nothing for the oppressed, marginalised and the Dalits and they are only paying lip service to the cause of these sections of the society,” she said.
This double standards - of launching schemes and naming buildings and monuments in the name of Ambedkar while remaining silent on atrocities on Dalits - would neither be tolerated nor accepted, the BSP supremo said.
“Atrocities on the Dalits have increased under the watch of the BJP governments,” she said.
Accusing the BJP governments of diluting the provisions of the SC/ST Act, she said many innocent people were being charged falsely for rioting and under other sections of the IPC for the violence that took place in the country during the April 2 “Bharat Bandh”.
“If your heart is clear and you actually want welfare of the Dalits, rather than waiting for the Supreme Court on the matter pertaining to the SC/ST Act, you should convene a meeting of the cabinet and issue an ordinance,” Mayawati said in Lucknow.
She also accused Modi’s government of not pleading for the SC/ST Act case forcefully enough in the top court and added this showed they were not honest towards welfare of the Dalits, who have been oppressed for years.




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