Questioning the integrity of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s claims of empowering dalits, BJP leader and former Minister Eatala Rajender on Wednesday sought to know why not a single dalit IAS officer is not posted in the Chief Minister’s Office.
Addressing a press conference here, Mr. Rajender ridiculed Mr. Rao’s new dalit empowerment schemes of providing financial assistance to Dalits. “Can Mr. Rao explain in past seven years of his stint Chief Minister as to how many dalit students were extended financial assistance?”, the former Minister questioned.
Mr. Rajender wanted the government to explain how many Dalits are there in the State and how many of them had applied for financial assistance for different purposes. He alleged that Mr. Rao had not given adequate opportunity to former Chief Secretary K. Pradeep Chandra, who belongs to SC community, to render services to the State.
While officers of other communities were given extension of tenure as Chief Secretary, Mr. Chandra was denied such opportunity, the former Minister said. If Mr. Rao really wanted to uplift dalits, let dalits be given representation in the Council of Ministers in proportion to their population.
Alleging that State intelligence head Prabhakar Rao is using his personnel to scare people supporting him, the BJP leader said the officer should work as per the law but not misuse his power. “Whenever our party workers hold a meeting in a household, intelligence officers later going and persuading them not to support me,” he charged. Mr. Rajender exuded confidence that people would take vengeance against the Intelligence officials in the by-election by voting him to power.
When asked if the BJP had given adequate representation to SC persons in Union Cabinet, Mr. Rajender said that he wished that it would happen and hoped that Prime Minister Narender Modi would give proper representation to suppressed sections.
