Eye on polls, Cong govt organises conference on social justice

All progressive forces will come together to discuss ways to reclaim social justice and safeguard the "constitutional idea of India" at a conference being organised by the Karnataka government in Bengaluru later this month, the Congress has said.
The conference, to be inaugurated by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and attended by Human rights advocate and activist Martin Luther King III, comes at a time atrocities against dalits, adivasis and minorities are on the rise.
The July 21-23 conference, titled 'Reclaiming Social Justice, Revisiting Ambedkar', is being organised to mark the 126th birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution.

The Congress, seeking to retain power in Karnataka which goes to polls in 2018, has claimed that atrocities against the minorities had risen in the past three years.
The conference is being organised at a time "when regressive elements are chipping away the edifice of equity, as also liberty, equality and fraternity", All India Congress Committee (Scheduled Caste Department) chairperson K Raju said.
"So, it is important to rethink current social, political and economic paradigms and encourage a transformative spirit in Indian politics," he added.
Karnataka Minister for Public Works H C Mahadevappa said the purpose of the conference was to "come out with a specific constitutional, institutional and policy responses to concerns of equity, human rights freedom and democracy that have become especially pressing in the last three years".

Minorities comprise more than 60 per cent of the total population in Karnataka. The Congress has been aiming to consolidate the votes of minorities in its favour ahead of the assembly polls.