Varanasi (UP): Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday invoked poet-saint Guru Ravidas on his birth anniversary, urging people to end caste discrimination and identify those who promote it in their “self interest”.
Modi addressed two meetings and launched development projects worth Rs 3,000 crore during the visit to Varanasi, the second in a month to his Lok Sabha constituency ahead of the parliamentary elections.
He hit out indirectly at Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav for “mocking” the high-speed Vande Bharat train from Varanasi to Delhi after it developed a snag, saying they had insulted the engineers involved in the project. Laying the foundation stone for the Ravidas Janmasthali area development project here, Modi said caste discrimination is an impediment in achieving social harmony.
“Guruji had said that there should be no discrimination on the basis of caste. Till caste discrimination is there, people cannot connect with each other, social harmony is not possible and equality cannot be ensured,” Modi said.
“Identify those who in their self-interest, create caste discrimination and promote it,” he urged, without taking any names.
The prominent saint from the Bhakti movement of the 15th and the 16th centuries was born in Varanasi.
His hymns often addressed caste issues.
“He dreamt of a society where all are taken care of. We have tried to follow this tenet during the past four and a half years with ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas’ (inclusive development),” the prime minister said. (PTI)
