NEW DELHI — Marking his first anniversary as the Chairman of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) Scheduled Caste Department, former Delhi Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam delivered a blistering critique of the ruling government today. The milestone was celebrated with a grand gathering at the Congress headquarters at 24 Akbar Road, drawing a massive crowd of community members, party workers, and senior leadership.

K. Raju, the National Coordinator for the Congress’s SC, ST, OBC, and Minority departments, graced the occasion as the special guest. The event brought together national coordinators, state presidents, and volunteers from across the country to demonstrate solidarity and chart a robust future course of action for marginalized communities.

Gautam commenced his address by paying profound tributes to a pantheon of Bahujan icons and social reformers. He honored the enduring legacies of Jyotiba Phule, Fatima Sheikh, Narayana Guru, Periyar, Sant Gadge Baba, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, and Manyawar Kanshi Ram, grounding his political message in their historic struggles for equality and justice.

Shifting his focus to the current political climate, Gautam sounded an urgent alarm regarding the state of India's democracy. He accused the ruling dispensation of systematically dismantling democratic institutions and openly looting the electoral process, citing the recent cancellation of Meenakshi Natarajan’s Rajya Sabha nomination as a glaring example of this authoritarian shift.

The AICC SC Chair drew a sharp historical contrast between the developmental legacy of the Congress party and the current regime. He credited early Congress leadership, guided by Dr. Ambedkar's vision, for building modern India by establishing premier institutions like AIIMS and IITs, creating massive Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), and implementing reservations that allowed marginalized youth to become doctors, engineers, and lawmakers.

In stark contrast, Gautam accused the current government of mercilessly selling off these hard-earned national assets. He heavily criticized the BJP for shutting down government schools under the guise of mergers and making higher education prohibitively expensive, policies he claimed are forcing Dalit, tribal, and backward-class students to either abandon their studies or succumb to extreme distress.

Gautam did not hold back on economic issues, mocking the government's unfulfilled promises of bringing back black money and aggressively condemning the catastrophic impacts of demonetization. He stated that the administration has completely alienated the working class, leaving farmers and laborers to suffer under oppressive policies and soaring debt.

Taking aim at the ideological roots of the ruling party, Gautam accused right-wing factions of deliberately dividing the nation along caste and religious lines to mask their governance failures. He reminded the audience that while the architects of the Constitution fought for unity in diversity, the ideological forebears of the current regime stood with the British during the freedom struggle.

Concluding his powerful address, Gautam issued a formidable rallying cry to all Dalits, backward classes, farmers, and marginalized citizens across India. He declared that the AICC SC Department, backed by civil society, is fully prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect the nation's freedom and Constitution from being rewritten.

Promising unwavering loyalty to the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi, Gautam issued a direct challenge to the government's investigative agencies. He vowed that party workers would march through every village and town, utterly undeterred by the threat of prisons, state police, or even bullets, until the Constitution is secured and democratic values are entirely restored.