Jammu: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretary Ram Madhav on Saturday said the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre was “promise-bound" to fulfill the dream of B.R. Ambedkar to bring equality in the country.

The BJP leader was addressing a function organised by BJP state Scheduled Caste Morcha at party headquarters in Jammu to celebrate Ambedkar’s 127th birthday anniversary. “The country achieved independence from British long back but we are yet to achieve the freedom from social evils like caste system. We need to get freedom from it and we need to treat everyone equally irrespective of their creed, colour, caste, religion, region and language," Madhav said.

“There are lot of laws but laws alone won’t help. We are all one family and this needs to be kept in mind to maintain brotherhood," he said. Various instances had come to fore where people from scheduled castes had faced discrimination, said Madhav, and appealed others to get behind the victims in such cases. “At some places, scheduled caste are not able to get a house on rent. The backward class are facing lot of atrocities because equality is lacking in the country. We need to empathize with such victims," the minister said. He said the atmosphere in Jammu, which has a large population of Scheduled castes, was good “but still a stringent law is needed to safeguard the interests of the public".

Madhav said Ambedkar was a great nationalist and his life was a glaring example of it. “From freedom struggle to writing the constitution of the country, his contribution for upliftment of weaker sections of the society is worth praise and our government is working with that resolve and is promise bound to fulfill his dream to ensure equality," he said.

He said the BJP government was working for the benefit of poor and wanted to see the last citizen of the country happy. “The Centre has launched various schemes to make the poor stand on their feet...This government will never take any step which will go against the poor population of the country," he said. “There are many ways to improve the GDP but we believe that it will automatically go up when the lives of the poor improve," he said.

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