MUMBAI, 23 December 2006 — The Republican Party of India (RPI-Athavale faction) has decided to break with the Nationalists Congress Party (NCP). The NCP has become an anti-Dalit party and Dalits (lower caste Hindus) have lost faith in it. Hence there is no point in continuing with the alliance with the NCP, the president of the RPI-A, Ramdas Athavale, said here late Wednesday.
“The NCP has always taken the Dalits for granted. Even though we have had seat-sharing agreements with it, we always got a raw deal. The NCP gave us seats where we were not able to win, while it won the seats where the Dalits were in a strong position” he said.
“I declare that my party has decided to break and end the 16-year association with the NCP led by Sharad Pawar” and that the RPI (A) would contest the forthcoming elections to the 10 municipal corporations, including Mumbai, independently.
Athavale said the NCP had failed to live up to its promises to his party on sharing power in the state as well as at the center. He charged that the NCP had been humiliating his party and taken an anti-Dalit stance on the protests by Dalits over Khairlanji killings of a Dalit family and the desecration of an Ambedkar statue in Kanpur. Dalit youths are being deliberately targeted and persecuted after they protested against the killing of the Dalit family, he said.
Athavale said his party would attempt to forge a third front in Maharashtra by bringing together all warring factions of the RPI and unite like-minded, secular and leftist parties.
