NEW DELHI: Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said while Prime Minister Narendra Modi boasts about having a large number of MLAs and MPs from the Dalit community representing the BJP, these legislators have not been empowered by the party. “You (Modi) have taken away their power. They can’t make a decision. They have been made ministers but their OSDs are from the RSS,” he said.
Gandhi said while Dalits and other socially marginalised groups did get token representation in institutions, they have been kept out from key positions. “Without participation in the power structure, there is no point of representation,” he said.
“Representation without participation and control in the power structure does not mean anything,” Gandhi, who was addressing the birth anniversary celebrations of veteran freedom fighter and Dalit icon Jaglal Chaudhary in Patna today, said.
The Congress leader said ‘caste census’ proposed by the Congress would change the politics and economics in the country.
Caste census was not a mere survey but would be the first step to find out how much is the population of different castes and after that, financial survey and institutional survey would be conducted to know who controls which resources and institutions, he said.