BJP takes up ‘Dalit entrepreneurship’,says Ambedkar ignored

“A Dalit leader from East Bengal withdrew himself,paving the way for Dr Ambedkar to enter the Constituent Assembly as a member in his own right. It was Mahatma Gandhi who prevailed upon Jawaharlal Nehru to include Dr Ambedkar in his Cabinet,” said Advani.

Advani recalled that Ambedkar was given the Bharat Ratna (in 1990) by the VP Singh Government which was supported by the BJP.

He also said it was the BJP Government in Madhya Pradesh that built a “befitting memorial” for the late leader in Mhow,his birth place,but the Congress,which governed the state for 50 years,never took a step in this direction.

Recounting Ambedkar’s exhortation that “political democracy is incomplete without social democracy and economic democracy”,the

BJP also vowed to push the idea of entrepreneurship among Dalits.

“This is a new approach to achieving Dr Ambedkar’s dream of economic democracy. I would call it the reservation-plus approach,meaning that we will continue the policy of reservations and also launch ambitious new initiatives to bring the SCs,STs and OBCs in the mainstream of entrepreneurship,trade,commerce,professions and remunerative employment,” said Advani,according to the text of his speech distributed later.

While the idea of Dalit entrepreneurship is said to have been pioneered by a Delhi-based Dalit columnist,Chandrabhan Prasad,the BJP’s SC Morcha chief in Pune,Milind Kamble,who heads Pune-based “Dalit Chamber of Commerce and Industries”,has also been championing the cause.

Advani also appealed to voters of Uttar Pradesh (“where not only Dalits but all sections of society were feeling threatened”) to elect a BJP-led Government in New Delhi to put UP in order.

On the sidelines of the Padma awards ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan,Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reacted to Advani’s remarks by saying they were “factually incorrect”.