22 Facts About Ramdas Athawale

1.

Ramdas Bandu Athawale was born on 25 December 1959 and is an Indian politician and social activist from Maharashtra.

2.

Ramdas Athawale's parents were Bandu Bapu and Honsabai Bandu Athawale.

3.

Ramdas Athawale attended Siddharth College of Law, Mumbai and married to Seema Athawale, on 16 May 1992.

4.

Ramdas Athawale has been editor of a weekly magazine called Bhumika and is a founder member of Parivartan Sahitya Mahamandal.

5.

Ramdas Athawale has served as president of Parivartan Kala Mahasangha, the Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Foundation and the Bauddha Kalawant Academy and was founder president of Bauddha Dhamma Parishad.

6.

Ramdas Athawale played the title role in a Marathi film, Anyayacha Pratikar, and had a small role in another Marathi film, Joshi ki Kamble, as well as roles in Marathi dramas such as Ekach Pyala.

7.

Ramdas Athawale represented the Pandharpur constituency of Maharashtra and is the president of the Republican Party of India.

8.

Ramdas Athawale left the Nationalist Congress Party-INC alliance in 2011 after having lost in the 2009 Lok Sabha election, when he contested the reserved Shirdi constituency.

9.

Ramdas Athawale led the RPI party, joined the alliance of Shivsena and the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2011 and contested Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections together.

10.

In 2014, Ramdas Athawale was elected to the Rajya Sabha, which is the upper house of parliament.

11.

Ramdas Athawale became Minister of State in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment on 6 July 2016, working under Thawar Chand Gehlot.

12.

Ramdas Athawale's RPI organisation is a part of the National Democratic Alliance led by the BJP.

13.

When Ramdas Athawale established a children's wing of the RPI in September 2017, he appointed his son, then aged 12, to be its leader.

14.

In May 2019, Ramdas Athawale continued his position as Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment.

15.

In 2015, following attacks on Dalits in the state of Haryana, Ramdas Athawale said that if the police were to continue turning a blind eye to their plight then special protection squads led by senior police officers should be formed from among members of the community and they should be granted firearms licenses so that they could protect themselves.

16.

Ramdas Athawale criticised the record of the Hindu-centric BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in dealing with issues relating to discrimination of not only Dalits but other disadvantaged communities in India.

17.

In March 2018, echoing remarks he had made soon after becoming Minister of State in 2016 and reacting in particular to recent atrocities against Dalits in Saharanpur, Unnao and Allahabad, Ramdas Athawale advocated inter-caste marriage as the best way to minimise such events and noted that he had married a Brahmin "to set an example".

18.

Ramdas Athawale said that this had caused the community to shift their support to the BJP and RPI, while refuting charges that he was a puppet under BJP control.

19.

Ramdas Athawale has said that the government of India should release the caste-based information collected during the 2011 Census of India, which is considered to be a politically sensitive dataset, in order to address inequities in the reservation system across the board.

20.

Ramdas Athawale rejects claims that doing so would lead to an increase in casteism.

21.

Ramdas Athawale has said that reservation quota of 25 percent for Dalits should be introduced to sports, including cricket, following India's defeat in the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy Final against Pakistan, and that the armed forces should be subject to a quota regime.

22.

Ramdas Athawale has said that, just as the Lok Sabha has constituencies reserved for members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, so too should the Rajya Sabha and the Union cabinet.