Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will hold a one-day all-party meeting in Hyderabad on Sunday to formulate guidelines for the Chief Minister’s Dalit Empowerment Scheme. Many Dalit public representatives, Dalit MLAs and MLAs of all political parties, including opposition AIMIM, Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), may attend the proposed meeting at Pragati Bhavan from 11.30 am.
The Chief Minister contacted CPM and CPI party’s state secretaries Chada Venkat Reddy, Tammineni Veerabhadram over the phone requesting to send their senior Dalit leaders to the meeting. Opposition parties, including Congress and BJP floor leaders and AIMIM, would participate in the meeting.
KCR asked Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, CMO Officials, and other senior officials from the Government departments to be present in the meeting as the agenda includes a thorough discussion on qualitative development changes that the government proposes to bring in the lives of Dalits.
The meeting comes days after the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) issued a notice to the state government over the death of a Dalit woman, Mariamma, in the Bhongir district. ANI reported, citing NCSC, that Mariamma was arrested along with her son Uday Kiran after her employer accused her of theft. She was beaten for four days, as per the report, and died due to alleged police torture at the police station.
KCR has ordered an inquiry and asked the concerned authorities to take stringent action against the police personnel responsible as per the law. “We will not pardon such incidents. The government will not keep quiet if anyone does harm to Dalits. There will be swift action on the matter. There should not be any delay in inquiring about the culprits of lockup death and taking stern action against them. If need be, dismiss them from the service,” the chief minister said on Friday, according to ANI.
Rao said the government will support the children of the victim and give one of them a government job, a house, and an ex-gratia of ₹15 lakh, and that her two daughters will be given ₹10 lakh each.
