Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani on Tuesday called for a statewide strike on June 1 if cases registered against members of the Dalit community during the 2016 Una protests are not withdrawn, The Indian Express reported.
Mevani arrived in Ahmedabad on Tuesday evening days after an Assam court granted him bail in back-to-back cases.
He was first arrested on April 20 for a tweet saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi worshiped Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse. Hours after he secured bail in this case on April 25, another one was filed against him based on a complaint by a woman police officer, who had alleged that Mevani had “uttered slang words” and assaulted her while he was being taken from Guwahati airport to Kokrajhar district.
However, a sessions court granted the Independent legislator bail in the assault case on April 29 and pulled up the police for registering a false first information report.
On Tuesday, Mevani addressed a gathering in Ahmedabad’s Vadaj area.
“If this government does not withdraw cases registered against Dalits during the Una protests, then Gujarat will be closed on June 1,” he said, reported The Indian Express.
In 2016, four Dalit men in Somnath district were stripped and beaten by an upper-caste mob for skinning a dead cow. The incident triggered protests across Gujarat. Mevani became the face of the Dalit agitation.
“The [Una] cases should be withdrawn the way cases related to Patidar agitation were withdrawn,” Mevani said on Tuesday. “It was good that they did [withdraw cases against Patidars], we support it.”
In March this year, the Gujarat government withdrew 10 cases lodged in connection with the Patidar reservation stir of 2015, PTI reported. The Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti, led by Congress leader Hardik Patel, had demanded Other Backward Class status and 27% reservation in government jobs and education for the Patel community.
In his address, Mevani also lauded the judge who granted him bail in the assault case registered against him by the Assam Police.
“Nowadays, the number of people with spine has become fewer than those with a strong spine,” he said, reported The Indian Express. “But I – Jignesh Mevani, an accused – am saluting the judge for showing strong spine.”
Mevani said he had been arrested for openly fighting with the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He also said that he will not delete the tweet for which he was arrested by the Assam Police.
The MLA thanked the leadership of the Congress party in Delhi, Gujarat and Assam for supporting him.
“Rahul Gandhi woke up from sleep in the midnight for me and instructed all the top leaders of the party to ‘stand strongly with Jignesh till he is released from jail’,” he said.
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