TMC submits privilege notice against Amit Shah for 'insulting' B R Ambedkar

New Delhi: Trinamool Congress (TMC) Rajya Sabha floor leader Derek O’Brien on Wednesday submitted a privilege notice against Home Minister Amit Shah for his alleged “insulting” remarks against B R Ambedkar with his party chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee saying the BJP leader’s statement displays “casteist and anti-Dalit” mindset.

Like it was during the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament, Trinamool treaded a lone path and did not join the Congress-led protests inside and outside Parliament but walked out of Rajya Sabha in the afternoon shouting slogans against Shah. “We are with Ambedkar,” O’Brien said when asked whether the party would support the Congress initiative.

Sources said O’Brien submitted the privilege notice against Shah in the afternoon. They said he has referred not only to what he said but how he said it, which was “distasteful”.

On Wednesday while replying to the debate on the Constitution, Shah said, “abhi ek fashion ho gaya hai - Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar. Itna naam agar bhagwan ka lete to saat janmon tak swarg mil jata (It has become a fashion to say Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar'. If they had taken God's name so many times, they would have got a place in heaven).”

Referring to the remarks, Mamata said the “mask has fallen” and Shah chose to “tarnish” the occasion of debate with “derogatory” remarks against Ambedkar in the “temple of democracy”.

“This is a display of BJP’s casteist and anti-Dalit mindset. If this is how they behave after being reduced to 240 seats, imagine the damage they would’ve inflicted if their dream of 400 seats had been realised. They’d have rewritten history to entirely erase Dr Ambedkar’s contributions,” she said.

She also said Shah’s remarks were an “insult to the millions who look up to Babasaheb for guidance and inspiration. But what else can you expect from a party that has internalised hate and bigotry?…this outrageous remark is not only an outright attack on him but all members of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution, which symbolised India’s unity in diversity with members from all castes, creeds, ethnicities, and religions.”