Ram Madhav decries political untouchability

New Delhi: Caste-based untouchability has ended in India but "political untouchability" has been invented, BJP general secretary Ram Madhav said on Wednesday. 

He was speaking at an event on 'Gandhi-Mandela Legacy: Way Forward', organised by RIS (Research and Information System, an autonomous policy research institute) to celebrate 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and 100th birth anniversary of Nelson Mandela.

Madhav said that both Gandhi and Mandela had adversaries but not enemies in their political lives. 

He said that if one is in politics he is bound to have adversaries and even Gandhi was at loggerheads with people within his own party. 

"He had to endure differences of opinion, he had to endure rebellion...even from those who were his choices," he said, going on to describe Gandhiji's differences of opinion with Jawaharlal Nehru. 

He spoke on the politics of the day and said that both Mandela and Gandhi stood for the man of the street, they were leaders of the masses. 

"Looking at today's politics, we have ended apartheid in South Africa, we have ended caste-based untouchability in India but they have invented new apartheid and new untouchability in the form of political untouchability," he said.