Two CMs Were Arrested. Tribal CM still in Jail: Rahul Gandhi On Hemant Soren And Caste
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi compared the arrests of AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren to highlight that the “system is aligned against the lower castes.” Referring to Soren, he said that the “tribal Chief Minister” continues to be in jail.
During a session titled ‘Samvidhan Samman Sammelan’ in Panchkula, Haryana, the Wayanad MP alleged that whenever someone is tribal or Dalit, they are “automatically framed.”
Referring to Soren, Mr. Gandhi said, “Two Chief Ministers were arrested. The tribal CM is still in jail. He was arrested before and is still behind bars. The national media has forgotten him; it doesn’t talk about him.”
Drawing comparisons among other political party leaders, Mr. Gandhi said, “Mayawati is corrupt, but not Naveen Patnaik, Lalu Yadav is corrupt… If someone is tribal or Dalit, he is automatically framed.”
Both Kejriwal and Soren were arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with two separate money laundering cases this year. While Soren was arrested in January in relation to an alleged land scam, Kejriwal was arrested in March in relation to the Delhi liquor scam. Both CMs applied for interim bail several times, with Kejriwal finally being granted bail by the Supreme Court on May 10.
Soren, however, has yet to receive it, with the top court declining bail, citing that the former Jharkhand CM was concealing facts to the case.
Accusing the system to be “aligned against lower castes, severely, and on every level” based on the difference in bail decisions, the Congress leader cited examples such as the corporate system, media system, bureaucracy, military, and education, where he claimed that 90 percent don’t have representation yet arguments of ‘merit’ are being made.
Questioning the lack of representation, Mr. Gandhi asked, “How is it that 90 percent of people don’t have merit?”
Claiming that he had been “sitting in the system” since birth, Mr. Gandhi said that he was quite familiar with how the system worked, “whom it favours, how it favours, whom it protects, whom it attacks.”
“I know everything because I come from inside the system… When my grandmother was the PM, my father was the PM. When Manmohan Singh was the PM, I used to go to the PM’s house. So, I know how the system works from the inside,” he added.
