PM Modi asks Congress: Why no candlelight march for Dalit girl raped in Bidar?

Karnataka elections 2018: Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during Karnataka election campaign rally on Tuesday. (Source: PTI Photo)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday accused the Congress party of misleading Dalits in Karnataka and questioned their silence over the rape and murder of a Dalit girl in Bidar. Addressing a BJP rally in the poll-bound state, PM Modi alleged that the Congress wooed Dalits in the previous assembly election with the promise of making Mallikarjun Kharge, a veteran Dalit leader, the state chief minister. But the Congress later sidelined Kharge, PM Modi added. “During the last election, Congress promised they will make Kharge Ji CM. They misled the Dalit community. They sidelined Kharge Ji. This is typically how Congress does their politics,” he said.

While referring to the rape of a Dalit girl in Bidar, PM Modi alleged that the Congress had no sympathy for the rape victim in Karnataka while it held a candlelight march in Delhi for another. “The atrocities against Dalits in Karnataka are not hidden from anyone. What happened in Bidar is still available on social media. I want to ask the Congress, where did your candlelight march go when this was happening in Bidar?” asked PM Modi.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi led a candlelight vigil in New Delhi over the rape incidents in Unnao and Kathua. BJP MLA from Uttar Pradesh, Kuldeep Singh Sengar, was accused of raping a 17-year-old girl in Unnao, while an eight-year-old girl from the Bakherwal community was gangraped and murdered in Jammu-Kashmir’s Kathua district.

In April, addressing the Indian diaspora in London, PM Modi said, “A rape is a rape. It should not be politicised.” He also asserted that one should not compare the number of rape incidents between governments as it was a sensitive and emotive issue.