PATNA: RJD national vice-president
Rabri Devi and her sons Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav will participate in the HAM-S rally at Gandhi Maidan in Patna on Sunday.
Giving this information to media persons on Saturday, HAM-S president and former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi said more than 1 lakh workers of his party as well as RJD from several states, including Jharkhand, West Bengal and Punjab, would participate in the rally. The rally has been organised to press for a 34-point demand for uplift of dalits and downtrodden people.
Manjhi, however, was not sure if the Congress would also participate in the rally. “Their newly appointed AICC in-charge of Bihar affairs Shaktisinh Gohil is in Patna on Sunday,” he said.
“Our party is demanding raising the reservation limit to 85% so that its benefits could be extended to all the needy, including the upper caste poor. If need be, an amendment should be made to the Constitution,” he said.
Maintaining that the rally was not only for dalits but for all sections of the society, including minorities, Manjhi also demanded reservation in the judiciary and private sector.
The HAM-S leader complained that cases under the SC and ST Act were hardly lodged and the conviction rate was also low.
Calling the Centre and Bihar government anti-Dalit, Manjhi accused the Union government of delaying the review petition against the SC ruling that diluted the SC/ST Act. “Had the Centre taken up the issue with sincerity, the dalit organisations would not have called Bharat bandh on April 2,” he said.
Manjhi also criticised CM Nitish Kumar on the issue of prohibition. Not less than 78,000 of the 1.27 lakh people arrested for liquor offences were dalits, he said.
