Attacking Narendra Modi's development model, JD(U) minister Shyam Rajak on Wednesday alleged that he had failed to provide an alternative source of livelihood to the dalit people in Gujarat engaged in manual scavenging.
"The fact that about 12,000 dalit people in Gujarat are still engaged in manual scavenging for living speaks volumes of social inequity and lop-sided development in Gujarat," Rajak told reporters in Patna.
"Is the illegal practice of manual scavenging a development model that Modi wants to replicate at the national level if he becomes the prime minister?" the Food and Consumer Protection minister wondered.
Quoting from a survey by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences a couple of years ago, Rajak said about 12,000 dalit people, including women, were engaged in manual scavenging in various Gujarat districts with the Narendra Modi government failing to provide essential kits or provide them an alternative sources of livelihood.
Quoting from another report of the National Human Rights Commission headed by Jusice KG Balakrishnan, Rajak claimed that the dalits in 77 villages of Gujarat had to migrate after social boycott by fellow villagers.
The dalits in Gujarat were being subjected to atrocities like untouchability and casteism and at many places they were not allowed to enter temples and share potable water used by the people of higher castes, the JD(U) minister alleged.
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