Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagging the "distressing rise" in incidents of Dalit atrocities and demanded that a bill to prevent such crimes is brought in the monsoon session of Parliament next month.
Referring to the incidents of Dalit atrocities in two-Bharatiya Janata Party ruled states Rajasthan and Maharashtra, the Congress President also alleged that the National Democratic Alliance government had "allowed" an ordinance, brought by the United Progressive Alliance, to lapse and slammed it for not bringing a bill to replace it in the last budget session of parliament.
Gandhi's letter to the prime minister comes a day before Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi visits Dalit icon B R Ambedkar's birthplace Mhow in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday to inaugurate the national launch of the year-long 125th birth anniversary celebrations of one of the architects of the Constitution.
The celeberations are being seen as an attempt by Congress to reach out to dalits after its debacle in last Lok Sabha polls, which saw the BJP making inroads among SC/ST voters in Hindi heartland.
"I want to bring to your attention the distressing rise in the incidents of atrocities against Dalits across the country. In Nagour district of Rajasthan, 17 Dalits were mowed down by a tractor by members of another community over a long-standing land dispute. Four Dalits have died while another is critical. Three months earlier, three Dalits were burnt alive in the same district."
"Rajasthan is not isolated state. Other states have witnessed brutal assaults on Dalits such as the shocking instance of a Dalit youth being murdered in Shirdi Maharashtra, a stone's throw away from the local police satiation for having an Ambedkar ringtone on his mobile phone," she said in the letter.
Holding that it is important for the ends of justice to ensure that a fair and an impartial inquiry is conducted in these cases and the guilty are punished as per law, she said that it is also equally important to ensure that the institutional machinery charged with the welfare and protection of Dalits is strengthened and made accountable so that all Dalits are able to access justice as a matter of right.
"It is with this intention that the UPA-2 government brought in an ordinance which, among other things, sought to strengthen the implementation of the SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989," she recalled.
Gandhi said that it was a "matter of disappointment" that the NDA government "allowed the ordinance to lapse" by sending it to the Standing Committee.
"Even though the standing committee submitted its report in December 2014, government did not bring it to Parliament for passage in the budget session. I would, therefore, urge you to bring the bill for passage in the upcoming monsoon session," the Congress president said.
Ahead of 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the UPA government had in March last year cleared an ordinance making penal provisions more stringent to deter people committing crimes against members of Dalit communities.
The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Ordinance proposed that common crimes like rape, assault and kidnapping should also be brought under the purview of this Act.
Both the Congress and the BJP are planning to observe Ambedkar's birth anniversary in a big way this year to reach out to the Dalit community.
The last Lok Sabha polls saw caste barriers breaking in key states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar where sizeable sections of Dalits had voted for the BJP.
After its worst debacle in the Lok Sabha polls last year, Congress has lined up a series of programmes in various parts of the country to project that it was champion of the Dalits' cause.
