Centre slack towards dalit cause: Congress

Holding the Modi government responsible for the violent protests  against the dilution of the anti-atrocities law, the Congress on Monday demanded that the Centre bring in amendments to the law to uphold the rights of Dalits and tribals.  

Senior Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Ghulam Nabi Azad also accused the Modi government of being "uninterested" in addressing the problems faced by dalits, minorities, backward classes, poor, youth and farmers.

"The government must immediately bring in an amendment in Parliament to take corrective measures," Kharge told a press conference here after the Centre moved a review petition in the Supreme Court against its March 20 order diluting the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Curative petition  

Kharge contended that the review petition would go to the same persons who issued the original order.

"They (Centre) can also file a curative petition and the matter should be heard by a Full Bench of the Supreme Court," the Congress leader said.

He argued that the SC judgement could have been reversed through an amendment in Parliament to ensure status quo ante on the anti-atrocities law.

Azad, Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, said: "I charge that the central government, and not the Supreme Court, weakened and diluted the law by not representing the case properly before the court."