Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday launched a strong attack on the BJP government, accusing it of fostering a “feudal mindset” that has led to a rise in violence and discrimination against Dalits, Adivasis, backward classes, and minorities.
In a post on X, Kharge cited data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), saying that crimes against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes had increased by 46 percent between 2013 and 2023, while crimes against Adivasis had gone up by 91 percent.
He also referred to recent incidents of caste-based violence, including the lynching of Hariom Valmiki, a Dalit man, in Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli district, caste discrimination against a Haryana IPS officer who recently died by suicide, and the assault on Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai.
“Caste discrimination against an IPS officer in Haryana, the harassment of Hariom Valmiki, the attack on the CJI and the BJP mindset justifying it, and the atrocities against elderly Dalit woman Kamla Devi Raigar in BJP-ruled Rajasthan are not isolated events,” Kharge said. “They are a dangerous manifestation of the RSS–BJP’s feudal mindset.”
He said the growing number of such incidents represented a direct attack on the core principles of the Constitution: equality, justice, and fraternity. “This politics of intimidating and suppressing SC/STs, backward classes, Adivasis, and marginalised communities poses a serious threat to democracy,” he warned.
Kharge accused the Modi government of turning a blind eye to the suffering of these communities. “You are keeping your eyes shut to these issues while remaining engrossed in your own spectacles,” he said. “India will be governed by the Constitution, not by the decrees of any extremist ideology.”
A day earlier, Kharge had described the suicide of the SC/ST IPS officer in Haryana as a “horrific testament to social injustice, inhumanity, and insensitivity” under what he called the BJP’s “Manuwadi” system.
