Representative image. Credit: PTI File photo

As the Centre has appointed a commission headed by former Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan to look into demands to include Dalits who had converted to Islam and Christianity in the Centre’s list of Scheduled Castes, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Monday said that the demand to allocate reservation to “converts” is “anti-constititional” and “anti-national”.

The right-wing body invoked B R Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and even Indira Gandhi, who they said, had termed the demand “unwarranted”. The VHP says that it will now carry out a nationwide awareness campaign against the demand. In a press conference in Delhi, the VHP said that these demands aim to steal the benefits of reservation from Hindus. “The slicing demand to steal the benefit of reservation to allocate it to the converts from the scheduled communities is not only anti-constitutional and antinational but also a daylight operation of dacoity on the rights of the Scheduled Castes,” the VHP said in a release.

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