The leader of Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch and the Dalit rights activist Jignesh Mevani, in a memorandum to the Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani on Thursday informed of his organization’s intent to hold a rail-roko protest on October 1 at Maninagar Railway Station as the state continues to ignore their demands.

The memorandum states that they have demanded allocation of five acres of land to landless Dalits and resolution of long pending issues affecting the community on August 20. However, it has alleged that the government remained insensitive to Dalits.

“The state government appeased Patidars, even accepting their demands for reservation. But it has treated dalits in a step-motherly fashion. Unlike the handsome package for Patidars, dalits are deprived of even their basic due, being denied BPL cards and proper housing. Ex-CM Anandiben Patel at Samadhiyala village had admitted that dalits there had neither BPL cards nor access to housing schemes. Considering this, we had asked that dalits in the 12,000 villages of Gujarat be allotted housing plots, but have got no response,” reads the memorandum.

Jignesh Mevani was, recently, arrested by the Gujarat Police during his visit to the state on his birthday, citing law and order situation. Many people had criticized the move by the Gujarat Police and had blamed PM Modi for the same.

By Prajakt K