Kumari Selja Kumari Selja

Congress leader Kumari Selja alleged she was asked about her caste on a visit to the Lord Krishna temple in Dwarka, Gujarat, though she was a Union minister then.

“I am a Dalit, but a Hindu. Even I feel like going to a temple. I went to Dwarka. Even I felt like visiting the Dwarka temple,” Selja said in the Rajya Sabha during the debate on commitment to the Constitution. “Everybody knew I am a minister. I have been to many temples in the North and South but here was another facet to the Gujarat model. Imagine this… in Dwarka temple, I was asked what my caste was despite being a cabinet minister,” she said.

Treasury members asked her to reveal who asked about her caste. Ravi Shankar Prasad said he had been to that temple many times but never faced such an experience.

The Congress’s Pramod Tiwari said there was no reason not to believe Selja. Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said it was more objectionable that Selja was asked about her caste when Prasad was not.

Her voice choking, Selja said, “He cannot question me like this… This is about my honour… I am expressing something that I have gone through. As if that humiliation was not enough, I am subjected to humiliation on the floor of the House.”

“Don’t read too much,” the Deputy Chairman told Selja and asked her if anybody had said she was “lying”. He said he would go through the records and take action if any member has questioned her integrity.

Leader of the House Arun Jaitley said, “It was a very serious matter that a minister can be treated in this manner. Would you let us know what you did thereafter? Did you write to the CM? Did you write to the PM? Did you raise it in the cabinet? Or you decided this injustice should be swallowed and I should just sleep over it and ignore it?”

Selja said, “I choose not to answer that.” Jaitley replied, “When no answers are given, then no answers could have been given.”

Selja said the fact that minister after minister is speaking on the issue is “intolerance”.

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