Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday hailed the contribution of the Dalits towards the making of the Constitution and said it is “your ideology but wherever you go now, you are crushed by the system”.

The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Raebareli MP said this while interacting with a group of Dalit students of ‘Mool Bharti’ hostel near Bargad Chauraha here. He was accompanied by Congress Amethi MP Kishori Lal Sharma and other party leaders.

Naming some top private companies which are part of the “big 500” firms, Mr Gandhi asked the youths how many of those had a Dalit at its helm.

When one youth responded “none”, Mr Gandhi asked him, “Why not?” Another youth replied “because we don’t have adequate facilities”.

Mr Gandhi disagreed and said “(B R) Ambedkar ji did not have any facility. He was alone in his efforts yet he shook the politics of the country.” “There is an entire system which is against you and doesn’t want you to progress. The system attacks you everyday and half of the time you don’t even get to know how it attacks you,” the former Congress president told them.

“You need to understand that the ideology of the Constitution is your ideology. I can say this to you with guarantee that had there not been Dalits in this country, it would not have got its Constitution. It’s your ideology, it’s your Constitution but wherever you go now, you are crushed by the system,” Mr Gandhi added.

Mr Gandhi is on a two-day visit to his parliamentary constituency from Thursday.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)