Shimla: Congress took the government to task, today for shielding BJP president Khimmi Ram, who has been booked under the atrocities against scheduled caste and tribe act, even as the opposition labeled the ruling party of being as anti Dalit.
Congress state president Kaul Singh told reporters that the government was being selective in applying the law to save BJP state president Khimmi Ram, who has been implicated for making casteist remarks by Ram Singh, a district BJP president.
He said that matter needed to be decided in a court of law as it was a non cognizable, non bailable and non compoundable offence.
Terming the peace arrived at between Khimmi Ram and Ram Singh at the behest of chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal as a farce, he said it was only a temporary ceasefire before the ensuing elections of Panchayat and local urban bodies but congress will make it an election issue.
The BJP chief’s attitude only reflected the anti Dalit attitude of the party, said Kaul Singh, when he counted that there was only one member from the SC/ST community in the Dhumal cabinet while congress had given more representation.
Citing the incident as selection application of law, he said that congress workers were being booked for much lesser offences like holding protests over issues of rampant corruption.
Absolving former HP School Education Board chairman CL Gupta and secretary Prabhat Sharma of the responsibility in the large scale fake certificate scam, said the congress president, again showed the government pick and choose attitude.
He said in an allegedly fake mark sheet case involving a former congress minister, the government had not only arrested him, slapped a case on both the father and daughter but had also booked the previous education board’s chairman.
“Only a clerk, driver or a postman are being booked in the largest fake certificate scam case and the bigger fish are being spared,” he said.
Saying that the government was compromising with corruption, Kaul Singh said that to overcome its shortcoming, the ruling party diverting public attention by falsely laying the blame about shortage of funds at the central government.
As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads the team of media professionals at Hill Post.
In a career spanning over two decades through all formats of journalism in Electronic, Print and Online Media, he brings with him enough experience to steer this platform. He lives in Shimla.
