Rally to seek minister’s expulsion from Lok Sabha

CHENNAI, NOV 16: Dalit Panthers chief R Thirumavalavan on Monday said a rally of various Opposition parties in Chennai will demand that U...

CHENNAI, NOV 16: Dalit Panthers chief R Thirumavalavan on Monday said a rally of various Opposition parties in Chennai will demand that Union Minister E Ponnusamy be dropped from the Ministry and that he be stripped of membership in the Lok Sabha. Thirumavalavan was briefing mediapersons on the DPI-led rally to be taken out from Panagal Park in T. Nagar to Raj Bhavan here.

At the end of the rally, the participants will submit a memorandum to Governor Fathima Beevi, requesting her intervention in taking action against those who allegedly indulged in violence in the Chidambaram constituency during the Lok Sabha elections. It would also demand that Ponnusamy should be stripped of his MP post for alleged misrepresentation as a voter of the Chidambaam constituency.

The rallyists will also demand that the ban imposed on the Dalit leaders’ entry into Chidambaram be lifted. The police have so far neither given nor denied permission, Thirumavalavan said. Besides the DPI, the TMC and its allies, the AIADMK,Congress and several Dalit organisations are slated to participate in the rally.

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Referring to reports that the DPI and PT did not believe in working in tandem for the upliftment of the Dalit community, Thirumavalavan said he agreed with PT founder K Krishnasamy’s formulation that only Dalit parties and leaders could reflect the aspirations of the Dalits. “We are agitating on specific issues,” Thirumavalan said.

with mainstream parties like the TMC and AIADMK because they agree with us on the concept of politically empowering the Dalits,” Thirumavalavan said. “I also agree with Krishnasamy’s contention that the MPs elected from the reserve constituencies have failed to protect the socio-economic interests of the scheduled castes.”

The DPI chief charged that Ponnusamy, the Dalit nominee of the PMK who was elected from Chidambaram as well as the other six MPs who won from the reserve constituencies in N, functioned as “benamis” of forces that were antagonistic to Dalit consolidation.