Nitish Kumar insensitive towards dalit students, says Paswan over lathicharge incident

Union Minister and LJP President Ram Vilas Paswan today met the dalit students injured in police lathicharge and criticised Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for being "insensitive" towards the deprived section of the society.

Accompanied by LJP Parliamentary Board chief Chirag Paswan and MP brother Ramchandra Paswan, he visited the students' hostel in Saidpur and Mahendru to express solidarity with the protesting dalit students agitating against the state government over lowering of scholarship amount for them.

"It (police lathicharge) was a painful incident and reflect anti-dalit approach of Nitish Kumar. He has crores of rupees for construction of International Museum, but does not have money to provide adequate scholarship to SC and ST students," the Union Minister of Food and Public Distribution, Consumer Affairs told PTI.

Ram Vilas said Chirag raised the lathicharge issue in the Parliament to highlight the plight of the downtrodden under the grand alliance rule in Bihar.

He said soon a party delegation would meet Governor Ramnath Kovind over the lathicharge on dalit students who were taking out a peaceful march against lowering of post-matric scholarship from Rs one lakh to Rs 15,000.

Launching a scathing attack on Nitish, Ram Vilas said earlier he divided the dalits between 'dalits' and 'mahadalits' (poorest among dalits) and now was preparing to stop toddy trade to harm the livelihood of the 'Pasi' (toddy traders) community.