Cong never gave SCs, STs their due: Dhami

DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Tuesday said the Congress has not given Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes their due and that it "insulted" its former president Sitaram Kesri, forcing him to quit.

Campaigning for BJP candidate for the Kedarnath assembly bypoll Asha Nautiyal in Rudraprayag, Dhami said the Congress was in power at the Centre for six decades after independence but never thought about giving the top constitutional post to Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).

"It was when Narendra Modi took over in 2014 that Ram Nath Kovind and Droupadi Murmu rose to the top constitutional post," Dhami said at an 'Anusuchit Jati Swabhiman Sammelan' in Rudraprayag.

"Everyone knows how the party insulted its leader Sitaram Kesri and forced him to quit as (Congress) president," he said.

Kedarnath which is an assembly segment under Pauri Garhwal Lok Sabha seat goes to polls on November 20.

SC and ST voters together constitute more than 20 per cent of the total electorate in the assembly constituency.

Dhami sought voters' blessings for Nautiyal, who is also the state BJP Mahila Morcha president.

He said she has served people with dedication for three decades and they should vote for her to strengthen the hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, under whose leadership reconstruction projects worth more than Rs 2,000 crore have been carried out in Kedarnath over the last 10 years.

Hitting out at the Congress over its claim that Dhami initially supported the construction of a replica of the Kedarnath temple in Delhi, the chief minister said it was "one of the many lies being spread by the Congress, which has run out of issues".

He said though he attended the foundation laying ceremony of the temple at the request of some people from Uttarakhand living in Delhi, when he realised that it was going to be named after Kedarnath, he called a cabinet meeting during which a policy was approved making any misuse of the Char Dham temples illegal.

Dhami questioned former chief minister Harish Rawat on attending the inauguration of a temple named Badrinath at Basai in Mumbai in 2015.

A Congress leader entered the Kedarnath temple with his shoes on after the 2013 floods, he claimed without naming anyone.

Dhami said he was the president of the Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee at that time and was being interviewed by a journalist inside the temple.

"The journalist entered the temple without his shoes but the Congress leader went inside with his shoes on. You can still see the video on YouTube. These people are now talking about Kedarnath and Badrinath," the chief minister said.

Dhami said Uttarakhand became the first state in independent India to pass a uniform civil code, honouring the father of the Indian Constitution Bhim Rao Ambedkar.

He asked people to vote for the BJP to help the party accomplish the task left unfinished by the untimely demise of Kedarnath MLA Shaila Rani Rawat.

The Kedarnath bypoll was necessitated by Rawat's death in July.