News LIVE: SC/STs Are Being Treated as Second Class Citizens, Says Congress’s Punia

Visuals from Delhi's Talkatora Stadium where Congress President Rahul Gandhi will launch a nationwide "Save the Constitution". "The campaign would be taken up at the state-level by the party's respective SC departments to reach out to the common man at the village level," he said. The Congress campaign comes at a time when the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is holding "Gram Swaraj Abhiyan" across the country under which Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked party MPs and MLAs to spend a night in Dalit-dominated villages.

"The Constitution is under threat in the BJP regime. The community is being denied opportunities in spheres of education and jobs. The programme aims to highlight these issues nationwide," a party leader said. Dalits form roughly 17 per cent of the country's electorate. There are 84 parliamentary seats reserved for candidates belonging to the scheduled castes. The BJP had bagged nearly half of the seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, reflecting in its success in politically key states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The leader noted that only three-four of those seats were won by the Congress then.

Congress's present and former Dalit lawmakers, those holding offices in zilla parishad, civic bodies and panchayat samitis, the party's office-bearers attached to its regional units will also attend the event, aimed at sensitising the attendees on the current state of affairs with regard to the community. The attendees are expected to take the message forward, holding similar campaigns in states to reach out to the community members, sources said.

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