“It is shameful that a Union Minister used words like “extremist, casteist and anti-national” in his letter”, he said. “She spoke a number of lies to cover up a lie”.
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Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, YSR Congress Party leader Jagan Mohan Reddy and Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Derek O’Brien have already visited the University of Hyderabad to express their solidarity with the protesting students.
Meanwhile, ten professors belonging to SC/ST community on Thursday resigned from their administrative posts in the University of Hyderabad (UoH), in response to the “fabridcated statements” by Union HRD Minister Irani over Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula’s suicide. “Yesterday, Irani’s statements were shameful, she was lying”, Kejriwal said.
Professor Prakash Babu, Dean of Student’s Welfare, told NDTV today that Ms Irani has incorrectly announced that he headed a committee that decided Mr Vemula and four other Dalit students should be punished for allegedly beating up a student leader of the BJP youth wing, the ABVP.
“The culpability of Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani should be investigated by a sitting high court judge and the Union Labour Minister should be immediately sacked”, another party spokesman Deepender Singh Hooda had said yesterday, when asked whether the party stood by its demand for sacking of Irani. “Instead of encouraging a bright student who secured admission into a Central university under open merit category, he was subdued and forced to end his life”.
Meanwhile, the university authorities revoked the suspension of four Dalit PhD scholars, meeting one of the key demands of the agitating students.
On the allegation against Ambedkar Student Association (ASA) in Hyderabad University as being “anti-national”, he said, “There can not be a more national activity than discussing about the thoughts of Ambedkar”.
In the statement later, he said, “HRD Minister shockingly and shamelessly lied to the Nation, manufactured non-existent facts and misstated the complete set of events, purely with a view to defend the illegal intervention by her ministerial colleague, Shri Bandaru Dattatreya…”.
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“Third lie was when she justified hostel suspension of the students by saying that it was hostel warden’s decision”.
