Udupi, September 14: Division among the Dalit groups in Udupi districts came to fore when two rival groups took two opposite stands on the presence of media persons at the district level Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes grievances redressal meeting, convened by the Deputy Commissioner here on Wednesday.
This is the first time in last four years a DC in Udupi convened the SC/ST redressal meeting.
At the beginning of the meet, DC M T Reju, instructed the media persons to keep away from the grievances meet, as it is a purely official meet and not a public meet.
At this juncture, Jayan Malpe, District Convener of Karnataka Dalit Sangharsha Samithi, supported by DSS (Ambedkar-Vaad), DSS (Prof. Krishnappa founded), and Samatha Sainik Dal opposed the DC's decision to keep out the media from the meet.
As Uday Kumar Tallur of DSS (Bheem-Vaad) opposed Jayan's stand and opposed the presence of the media, the meet plunged into turmoil.
DC said that the meeting was convened in the wake of the allegations that SC/ST grievance meet was not called for long. It was organised to solve some of the issues concerning Dalits, which remained unnoticed and unsolved.
He said that five Dalit representatives had only been invited from each of the Dalit organisations to the meet.
Out of the six Dalit groups present at the grievance meet all had their own argument between themselves over various issues. Argument by Uday Tallur that government employees belonging to Dalit communities cannot attend the grievances meet, added fuel to the rage as Jayan was an employee of a nationalized bank.
Dalit leader Narayana Manur demanded justification from the DC.
As the war of words continued SP and other police officials intervened. Mr Reju adjourned the meet due to the presence of the media and warring Dalit groups.
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