Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Thursday said Union Home Minister Amit Shah had undermined the dignity of the architect of the Constitution BR Ambedkar with his remark in the Rajya Sabha earlier this week. She asked the BJP leader to retract his remarks.

Addressing a press conference in Lucknow, Mayawati further said that Shah should repent as there is anger and resentment against him across the country.

“The remarks made by Amit Shah in Parliament about the architect of the Indian Constitution and messiah of Dalits and other neglected classes, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, have greatly hurt the dignity and existence of Baba Saheb and, ‘in a way he was insulted Now there is huge anger and resentment among his supporters all over the country and he should retract these words and he should also repent for it, if not his supporters (BR Ambedkar) will never be able to forget it, just like how they could not forget the misdeeds of the Congress towards Dr BR Ambedkar,” Mayawati said at a press conference in Lucknow.

During a debate on the Constitution in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, Shah said the Congress had taken to the mode of chanting BR Ambedkar’s name.

“Abhi ek fashion ho gaya hai – Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar. Itna naam agar bhagwan ka lete for saat janmon tak swarg mil jata (It has become a fashion to say Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar’. If they had taken God’s name so many times, they would have had a place in heaven),” he said. declared.

Wednesday, Amit Shah said Congress misrepresented his remark. He also said that successive Congress governments had insulted BR Ambedkar by not conferring the Bharat Ratna on him. He said a Bharatiya Janata Party-backed government finally gave him the award in 1990.

Earlier in the day, INDIA bloc MPs led by Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi staged a protest in the Parliament premises.

The BJP also launched a protest against the alleged insult meted out to the Dalit icon by the Congress.

With contributions from PTI, ANI