Protests against the arrest of dalit leader and independent MLA Jignesh Mevani by Assam Police are getting intensified in Gujarat with each passing day and now the dalit households have been urged to join the demonstration on May 1 – Gujarat Day.
Noted dalit rights activist Martin Macwan told THE WEEK that dalits from over 1,000 villages in Gujarat will switch off the lights in their homes and light a lamp in front of the Constitution. According to him, they will also take an oath of remaining loyal to the Constitution.
Mevani, who represents Vadgam constituency, was picked up by the Assam Police last week over his alleged controversial tweet in which he had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make an appeal for communal harmony. Soon after getting bail in this case, he was again arrested for allegedly assaulting a policewoman.
The legislator, who was sent to five days in police custody, termed it as vendetta politics.
Macwan criticised the police action though he said Mevani’s choice of words in his tweet can be criticised or questioned. Why he cannot appeal for communal harmony, he asked, adding that in all probability dalits from more than 1,000 villages will join the protest.
In a letter to Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, the dalits have sought an apology for what has been done to Mevani and also demanded that he be brought back to Gujarat with all due respect.
Macwan said if actions had been taken in one per cent of the speed in which police arrested Mevani, with the team of police flying in from Assam, things would have been different in the country.
Various civic society groups had flayed Mevani’s arrest while rallies were organized in his Vadgam constituency, North Gujarat.
Macwan said if their demands are not met with, the dalit organisations will call for a country-wide protest. Gujarat has just a 62 year old history, but the dalits' history spans 2,500 years, he said.
Mevani’s joining the Congress is merely a formality and he is waiting for the dissolution of the Assembly. In the 2017, the Congress had supported him and did not field a candidate in Vadgam. Then sitting Congress MLA Manibhai Vaghela was upset and a few days ago he joined the BJP.
Macwan and those within the Congress feel that the BJP wanted to ensure that Mevani remains busy in the hearings of the courts, that too, at such a distant place and cannot concentrate on elections.
The saffron party is aiming to break the record of Congress stalwart Madhavsinh Solanki of 149 seats in mid 1980s, and is going all out to ensure that not a single seat goes away from its kitty.
The BJP has only two seats in North Gujarat while the remaining five seats are with the Congress.
In Gujarat, the dalits constitute seven per cent of the electorate and in the country 16.5 per cent. It remains to be seen whether the current protests will help in a consolidation of dalit votes in Gujarat as the state goes to Assembly polls by the end of this year.
On May 1, dalits will organise programmes in their villages and one of their demands is also to withdraw the case against Mevani and all other dalits.
The Congress leaders in Gujarat are also in touch with Mevani's parents.
Meanwhile, unconfirmed sources said a few of Mevani’s associates were questioned by the crime branch.