Congress leader Digvijaya Singh (Express File Photo)
Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday said that the BJP may have named Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind as the NDA’s candidate for President in the name of fielding a “Dalit candidate” but asked whether there are any instances of Kovind ever raising issues related to people from the Scheduled Castes. Singh also said that BJP patriarch L K Advani rightly called Prime Minister Narendra Modi “a very good event manager”, and called Wednesday’s Yoga Day affair a “publicity” exercise.
About the Presidential polls, Singh said it is the BJP’s right to nominate its candidate but the party did not even take NDA ally Shiv Sena into confidence. “…forget about opposition parties, they did not even take their alliance partner Shiv Sena into confidence,” Singh said in Lucknow.
He said that although Kovind has been “selected in the name of Dalits”, there is hardly any example of the former Rajya Sabha MP ever having raised his voice in support of issues concerning Dalits. “Be it atrocities on Dalits in the name of cow protection in Una, Gujarat, or even Saharanpur, in UP, no one from the BJP came out in their (Dalits’) support,” Singh claimed.
