BENGALURU: In a move that is likely to resonate with the Congress party’s leadership among the Dalit community, the party national leader and former AICC president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday met the Dalit family which was fined Rs 60,000 for touching a village deity in Malur taluk of Kolar.
The family was invited to participate in the rally and meet Rahul Gandhi. According to those who were present at the meeting with the family, Rahul assured the family of the Congress party extending their full support to them and that their only saviour was the constitution which forms the bulwark of the country’s secularism.
He supposedly told the family that the Congress was fighting against the same evil of casteism through their padayatra and uniting the people against communal forces.
Congress leaders suggest that the Dalit family was still shaken by the sequence of events and were pleased with the interaction, to find support for themselves.
It may be recalled that in September this year, the Dalit family from Hullerhalli village in Malur taluk was fined Rs 60,000 by the upper caste in the village as a boy from that family had accidentally touched the village deity Bhuthamma’s stick during the local festival.
While police took action by arresting eight people in the case, the family replaced the Hindu gods with India’s constitutional architect, B R Ambedkar.
