Maneka refutes Suraj Bhan’s charges

LUCKNOW, SEPT 9: Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Maneka Gandhi yesterday differed from the state’s Governor, Suraj Bhan, and said crime against the Dalits was on the decline, not only in the state but in the entire country.

She also refuted his allegation that the state had not earmarked a separate fund for the welfare of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes on the basis of their population, which works out to 21 per cent. Maneka, who was here to lay the foundation stone of the building for the Composite Regional Rehabilitation Centre for Persons with Disabilities, said: “If one combines the allocations, both under the state and district plans, it comes to about 21 per cent.” Had there been a big difference in the figures quoted by the different states, she said she could have believed that the figure quoted by UP was fudged. It was incorrect to say that the crime figure had come down just because many cases of crimes against the SCsSTs were not being registered by the police, she added.

The Raj Bhawan had recently expressed its unhappiness over official laxity innot informing the Governor about the law and order incidents in general andcrimes against the Dalits in particular. In a letter to Principal Secretary, Home, V.K.Mittal, the Governor’s Secretary said that Suraj Bhan was not being informed about the law and order incidents.

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While addressing a seminar in the city recently, the Governor had allegedthat the Gupta government was dilly-dallying on his predecessor KalyanSingh’s decision to scrap a separate outlay on the Special Component Planfor the SCsSTs.

The Governor, who was in Mumbai to attend the Governors’ meeting, hadeven exhorted the Dalits not to depend on the government for their welfare. He had said that at the Mumbai meet, he would suggest the distribution of about 20 crore acres of wasteland in the country among the Dalits.