Gujarat MLA and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani on Tuesday took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Yuva Hunkar rally held at Parliament Street in New Delhi amidst heavy security. Mevani said Modi should speak on the violence that broke out near Pune on January 1 during the commemoration celebrations of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon.

“You have to answer on the violence on Dalits, violence in Saharanpur, and in Bhima Koregaon,” Mevani said. “You have to answer why Rohit Vemula was killed. You have to answer why people are not getting the money that is in the foreign accounts of Indians.”

Earlier on Tuesday, the Delhi Police had denied Mevani, farmers’ rights activist Akhil Gogoi, Jawaharlal Nehru University students Shehla Rashid and Umar Khalid and Vinay Ratan Singh of the Bhim Army permission to hold the rally in the city. However, the leaders defied the police orders and held the rally.

By noon, several supporters had gathered at the Parliament Street while the police deployed 1,500 police and paramilitary forces equipped with tear gas and 10 water cannons, NDTV reported. Soon after arriving, Mevani said that it was “unfortunate” that an elected representative was not allowed to speak, ANI reported.

Mevani said whenever Modi used to visit Ahmedabad, the police would detain him. “Now I have come to Delhi and they are trying to detain me again. The Bharatiya Janata Party has only practiced politics of breaking the country. I will practice politics of joining the country,” he said.

Holding up the Constitution and the Manusmriti, the Dalit leader directed his attack towards Modi and said, “You attack me as much as you want, I will stick to the Constitution...We believe in the Constitution and will protect it.”

The rally

The rally was organised to demand the release of Dalit rights activist and Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad and seek an end to the atrocities against Dalits and minorities, the organisers said. Their other demands are access to jobs and education and an end to the attacks on university campuses.

Azad is a key accused in the violence in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur in May 2017, but was put in jail under the National Security Act, just a day after the court said the charges were politically motivated.