AMETHI: In an attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government over the recent ‘Pran Pratishtha’ ceremony of Shri Ram Lalla at Ayodhya’s temple, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that President Droupadi Murmu is an ‘Adivasi’ (belonging to tribal community), so she was not invited to the mega event. Gandhi was addressing a public gathering in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi during the ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’. “Did you see the Ram Mandir event? It was held with great fanfare. But did you see any Dalit faces? Our President is an Adivasi, so she wasn’t allowed to attend the event. Did you see any farmer or labourer during the event? No backward class faces were anywhere seen during the event. But you must have seen Adani, Ambani and their families. All the businessmen were there. Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai and Narendra Modi were there,” he said. The ‘Pran Pratishtha’ ceremony of Shri Ram Lalla at Ayodhya’s historic temple was held on January 22, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi performing the rituals, led by a group of priests. It was attended by people from all walks of life. Meanwhile, Gandhi said, “This is their India. This is not yours. All you do is chant ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, while all they do is have helicopter rides and make money.” Reiterating the Congress’s promise to provide a legal guarantee of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) to farmers, Rahul Gandhi said, “Farmers were stopped from entering the national capital. What are they demanding? All they are asking for is MSP; it’s no huge thing. The Congress party has promised a legal guarantee of MSP for farmers if voted to power.” Speaking about caste census, he stated, “We have also promised a social X-ray of society, that is, caste census. We will get to know the percentage of the OBCs, Dalits and Backward Class people.” The Congress party and its allies in the INDIA bloc have been demanding the central government to conduct a caste census across the country, claiming that it will be conducive to policy-making for people belonging to various communities on the basis of their population. The ruling BJP, on the other hand, has been claiming that it would lead to a division in society. Earlier today, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi resumed his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi. The senior Congress leader is on a Manipur-Mumbai Yatra covering 15 states ahead of the Lok Sabha election. The Lok Sabha polls are expected to be held in April-May this year. Amethi used to be a Congress stronghold in Uttar Pradesh, where Rahul Gandhi lost to Smriti Irani by a margin of around 55,000 votes in the 2019 elections
