Dalit leader and Vadgam MLA Jignesh Mevani today urged Radhika Vemula, mother of Rohith Vemula, to contest the 2019 elections to “teach Smriti Irani a lesson”, the Union Minister for Textiles, Information, and Broadcasting.
General elections are due to be held in 2019 and Radhika Vemula has been urging dalits from across the country to come together to defeat the BJP.
On the second death anniversary of Rohith Vemula on Wednesday, his mother Radhika Vemula said all the oppressed communities should come together and launch a political party to defeat the BJP.
Students had organised "Rohith Vemula Shahadath Din" in the University of Hyderabad campus on Wednesday.
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"Smriti Irani, I won't forgive you. You may change your ministry but I will never forget you. I'm sending my kids (Dalit-Bahujan) to Parliament they will question you and haunt you, " Radhika Vemula reportedly said at the event.
Rohith Vemula had committed suicide in a hostel room on the campus of University of Hyderabad on January 17, 2016 after he and four other students were suspended by the university and expelled from their hostel rooms.
After his suicide, Dalit groups asserted that Vemula was one of theirs and that he had been a victim of oppression by the BJP, including Smriti Irani who was the HRD minister at the time.
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Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani who had defeated the BJP in his hometown Gujarat to win the independent seat in Vadgam constituency in last year's Assembly Elections took potshots at Irani, and urged Radhika Vemula to 'teach (her) a lesson'. .
"I strongly appeal to our inspiration Radhika(amma)Vemula to contest in 2019 elections and teach a lesson to Manusmriti Irani (sic) in Parliament," he tweeted.
Early this year, he asked the Prime Minister to speak up on atrocities against Dalits and not walk on the path of 'manusmriti'
He added that he would ask Prime Minister Modi to choose between Manusmriti and Constitution.
Mevani led the protests against Dalit atrocities in Gujarat after the incident in 2015 where four dalit youths were stripped half naked and publicly flogged for skinning a dead cow. He had subsequently campaigned against the state government and won the Vadgam seat in Assembly Elections in the state this year.
