Janjivan Bureau / New Delhi: Opposition presidential candidate Meira Kumar today said thar cast factor is not good for the country top chair. She would contest the polls on the plank of democratic values, inclusiveness, social justice and destruction of caste structure. Meira Kumar said she would launch her campaign from Mahatma Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat.
Kumar, the daughter of iconic Dalit leader Jagjivan Ram, rued that the polls were being seen as a “Dalit versus Dalit” contest. The caste system, she told reporters, should be “buried deep down” in the earth.
Asked about alleged attacks on Dalits in the recent past, she said, “It is quite shameful.”
The former Lok Sabha speaker, chosen as the opposition’s candidate to contest against BJP’s nominee Ram Nath Kovind in the presidential election next month, said she had not decided whether or not to appeal to JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar to support her nomination.
Kumar also said she would launch her poll campaign from Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat.
“There is a storm that two Dalits are pitted against each other for the President’s post and the truth of our society is coming out. Whenever similar elections have happened in the past, there were candidates who fought but their religion or caste was never discussed. But today it has been highlighted,” said Ms Kumar, a Dalit leader of the Congress from Bihar, whose selection by the opposition parties was seen as a counter to the BJP picking a Dalit leader Mr Kovind.
The opposition’s strategy was to ensure that key members of the opposition bloc like Mayawati would not support Mr Kovind because he is a Dalit, who form a big chunk of the Bahujan Samaj Party leader’s support base.
“All MPs appreciated my style of functioning when I was Lok Sabha speaker… none alleged I was biased,” she said.
Hinting at bias, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had posted a video of her Lok Sabha speech in 2013 in which then speaker Kumar is seemingly not extending protection against disruptions in the house.
Ms Kumar described her battle with Mr Kovind as “one of ideology.” The BJP and its allies, along with regional parties who have offered support have over 60 per cent of the vote and Mr Kovind is expected to win the presidential election with ease.
Bihar Chief minister Nitish Kumar broke ranks with the opposition bloc to support Mr Kovind, which, Ms Kumar said today, “happens in politics.”
