“This is not a dalit versus non-dalit issue as being projected by some to ignite passions….”
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The Rohtak MP further said that Irani was just trying to pass the buck on Minister of State for Labour Bandaru Dattatreya.
Appealing for restraint, Irani said passions are being ignited by “wrong information, misrepresentation, misconstruing and twisting” of facts to project a wrong image.
Attacking the government over the alleged suicide of a dalit student, Rohith Vemula, in Hyderabad, Congress leader Digvijay Singh today charged that vice chancellors have been handpicked by the BJP-RSS and asked student wings to come together to fight the “communal forces”.
She showed a letter to the media, saying it was the only document the state police got while investigating the case.
She said the ABVP student who was allegedly assaulted was also a Dalit. They also demanded Dattatreya’s apology for interfering in University matters and branding the students of University of Hyderabad as casteists, anti-nationals and extremists. Association president Harishankar Nachimuthu said, “Rohith’s move has made us all realize that even as a civil society we have been irresponsible by being passive towards things like the social boycott of five Dalit students”.
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, spokesperson of TMC Derek O’Brien and YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy interacted with the students, who have been on warpath demanding justice for 26-year-old Vemula Rohith Chakravarthi who was found hanging in his hostel room on Sunday.
The HRD ministry had written as many as five letters to Hyderabad University on Dattareya’s complaint.
In her interaction with the media, Smriti Irani also said that the students had challenged the order of suspension from the hostel, and that the High Court had declined to put a stay on the order.
Flanked by three Union Ministers (Thaawar Chand Gahlot, Nirmala Sitharaman and Vijay Sampla), the HRD minister said: “An effort is on to instigate students all over the country”.
“The Congress wants to shoot on this issue, which is expected but unfortunate… the Congress MP says that this problem persisted for four years”. I am in possession of a letter written by Shri Hanumantha Rao ji, Congress MP, on November 17, 2014. He, along with four other research scholars, was expelled from the University 12 days ago over an alleged clash with another student group August past year. “Rohith committed suicide but the conditions for his suicide were created by the VC and the minister”, Gandhi said.
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The protests escalated yesterday over Rohith’s suicide with activists demonstrating outside the residence of Dattatreya, who has been accused of abetment of the Dalit scholar’s suicide and demanded his resignation.
