While inaugurating the BR Ambedkar memorial in Delhi on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the Centre will not scrap reservation for Dalits. Modi took the event as an opportunity to assure people that the quotas will remain, and said marginalised communities had the right to reservations. “This is a right that nobody can snatch,” he said. He also said that the Opposition was spreading false rumours by saying the Centre did not care about Dalits.

The government has lately been accused of being insensitive towards Dalits, especially after the suicide of Dalit PhD student Rohith Vemula at Hyderabad Central University. Vemula had, before his death, written to university officials alleging that he was discriminated against because of his caste.