INDORE:
AICC president
Rahul Gandhi on Monday trained guns at
BJP over alleged ‘branding’ of SC/ST youths during a police recruitment drive in Dhar district of
Madhya Pradesh claiming that it was ‘an attack on the Constitution’.
“BJP’s casteist approach has dealt stabbed the nation in the chest. By writing SC/ST on the chests of youth in MP, (BJP) has attacked the constitution,” Gandhi said in a Tweet in Hindi.
The AICC chief was referring to the recent police recruitment drive held in Dhar where the SC/ST candidates reaching for medical check-up at the district hospital had ‘SC’ or ‘ST’ scribbled on the left side of their chests indicating their castes.
Gandhi said in the Tweet, “This is BJP/RSS’ thinking. This thinking sometimes used to put handi around the necks of dalits, tied brooms around their bodies, did not allow them to enter temples. We will defeat this thinking.”
The incident had started a huge debate with local authorities defending themselves by claiming that it was an attempt to prevent any irregularities in checking the height of the candidates. Norms say that the minimum eligible height for a candidate from general category was 168cm and that from SC/ST category was 165cm, they claimed.
Soon after the matter came to fore, Madhya Pradesh home minister Bhupendra Singh had ordered a probe into the matter.
Medical examination of as many as 206 candidates was held during the recruitment drive.
File photo