Narendra Modi pays tribute to BR Ambedkar in Gandhinagar on Monday
It's the 123rd birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar, chief architect of the Indian Constitution, and he found mention in every speech that
Narendra Modi made today, accusing the Congress of ignoring the Dalit leader's contribution by not nominating him for the Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian honour.
"The Congress never gave Dr Ambedkar the Bharat Ratna... forty years after his death, when a BJP-backed government was formed in Delhi, Babashaheb was honoured with the Bharat Ratna," Mr Modi said at a rally in Lakhimpur Kheri, in Uttar Pradesh. (
Read more)
"I condemn Modi's remarks on Ambedkar. His claim that they got Ambedkar the Bharat Ratna is false," asserted the Bahujan Samaj Party's Mayawati soon after. She points out that Dr Ambedkar was posthumously conferred with the Bharat Ratna in 1990, when VP Singh was the Prime Minister.
She has also claimed that the government of the time gave Dr Ambedkar the Bharat Ratna at the insistence of her party. "We had pressurised him," she said.
The VP Singh government was supported by the BJP. Ms Mayawati, however, alleged today that a Bharat Ratna for Dr Ambedkar was one of the decisions that Mr Modi's party was not happy about. "The BJP never liked the honour given to Ambedkar," she alleged.
At the root of the bickering between the two parties over the treatment meted out to Dr Ambedkar is the attempts to woo the Dalit vote in Uttar Pradesh. The community comprises 22 % of the electorate in the state, half of whom are Jatavs, who, since the late 1990s, have formed the BSP's core constituency and have voted aggressively for the party. But there are indications that a section of the Jatavs may have turned towards the BJP after the Muzaffarnagar riots. (
India Votes: full coverage)
Ms Mayawati has earlier crossed swords with Mr Gandhi too over the wooing of the Dalit vote.