Nagpur: The Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra took out a vociferous protest march here on Thursday to condemn and demand an apology from Union Home Minister Amit Shah for his remarks on B.R. Ambedkar in the Parliament.
The MVA constituents, Congress-Shiv Sena (UBT)-Nationalist Congress Party (SP) leaders gathered and joined the long procession from the Constitution Square to the Legislature Building.
They were carrying banners, placards, pictures of B.R. Ambedkar, some sporting copies of the Indian Statute, and raised angry slogans against HM Shah and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Sporting dark blue caps, bands or shawls with the words ‘Jai Bhim’ printed, the top MVA leaders including SS (UBT)’s Leader of Opposition (Council) Ambadas Danve, SS (UBT) Group Leader Aditya Thackeray, Congress’ ex-Leader of Opposition Vijay Wadettiwar, NCP (SP)’s state chief Jayant R. Patil, Rohit R. Pawar and other leaders, plus Opposition legislators squarely hit out at HM Shah’s remarks and ranted cries for his apology.
The MVA leaders hailed the virtues of B.R. Ambedkar for giving India a Constitution that has equal rights to all the citizens, uplifted the poor and downtrodden, acknowledged his contributions for the depressed classes and hailed his services to the nation, while vowing that “the country will never tolerate any insults” to him.
Simultaneously, B.R. Ambedkar’s grandson, Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) also organised separate agitations in Pune and other places to flay HM Shah.
SS (UBT) President Uddhav Thackeray and other leaders have urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to sack HM Shah from the Cabinet.
Earlier, the participants bowed, garlanded and saluted a life-size statue of B.R. Ambedkar, paid homage and then launched the march which terminated outside the Vidhan Bhavan where the Winter Session is currently underway and continued to raise slogans against the ruling BJP.
It may be recalled that a couple of days ago, HM Shah had made certain remarks pertaining to B.R. Ambedkar which the Opposition termed as ‘disrespectful’, and went on to spark an outrage in the state and different parts of the country.
However, HM Shah has claimed that his statement was twisted out of context and he turned around to blame the Congress terming it as ‘anti-Ambedkar’ and against the Dalits.
(IANS)
