BJP to reach out to SC community over CAA, explain how it has benefited Dalits

New Delhi [India], Dec 28 (ANI): To counter opposition over its protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, BJP will hold a meeting on Sunday with Dalit community leaders and highlight how the new law has benefitted the community whose members have to come to India in large numbers after facing religious persecution in Pakistan.

The party has decided to make Scheduled Caste (SC) community aware of the benefits of the CAA and reach out to intellectuals, doctors, academicians and professionals from the community to make them aware of the benefits that have accrued to the members of the community.

The meeting will be addressed by the BJP working president JP Nadda where MPs from the scheduled caste community are also expected to be present. Prominent personalities of community and elected representatives would also attend the meeting.

Sources said the need for a specific SC community-centric reach out was felt after a section of the opposition, including Bhim Army's Chandrashekhar Azad, tried to give credence to anti-CAA protests.

Other leaders from the Dalit community have also spoken on the issue. Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar said earlier this week that the CAA and National Register of Citizens (NRC) will "adversely affect Scheduled Castes (SCs) and tribes as well.

VBA members had also carried out a silent protest in protest against the CAA and the NRC.

The CAA seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims who entered the country from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan till December 31, 2014.

Sources stated that the party hopes to send across the message that a vast section of Hindus who stayed back in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh were from the scheduled caste community.

"We have to acknowledge that over 66 per cent of Hindus returning from these countries are from the scheduled caste community. These are underprivileged and poor people who had been forced to stay back under duress for doing scavenging," said BJP Spokesperson Bizay Sonker Shastri.

The meeting would aim to establish that some leaders were trying to mislead Dalits by terming CAA as anti-Dalit. "In fact, the community should thank the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the initiative that would immensely benefit the underprivileged population and make them respectful citizens of India," he added.

The meet comes days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken in detail about the CAA at a rally in the national capital. He had said most of the refugees who had come from Pakistan were from the Dalit community and questioned the silence of those who "claim" to do Dalit politics.

At the meet, the BJP would also bring out the fact that Jogendra Nath Mandal, who was the first law minister of Pakistan, had to run away from Pakistan and migrated to India after facing atrocities at the hands of the Muslim majority.

"Mandal had also been instrumental in Dalits staying back in Pakistan. Though he himself migrated to India leaving behind his followers in the lurch," Shastri added.