The Bahujan Samaj Party leader who has been more silent in Uttar Pradesh than customary, started question hour in the Upper House with a castigation of the current government’s role in the suicide of Rohith Vemula in HCU. She also demanded the inclusion of a Dalit member in the judicial committee probing into the issue.
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Initiating the debate yesterday, Left leader Sitaram Yechury accused the government of charging students with sedition because it couldn’t tolerate dissent and wanted to enforce its ideology on everybody.
On the day that BSP supremo Mayawati caused uproar in the ongoing Parliament session by bringing up Vemula’s suicide, the vigil organised by a small group of students and activists was rudely interrupted by the Delhi Police deployed in numbers that were almost larger than those of the protestors.
But the BSP members were not satisfied and shouted slogans after trooping into the Well, forcing Deputy Chairman P J Kurien to first adjourn the House for 10 minutes and then till noon. “He was not protesting against “Manuvaad”,’ capitalism”, or “Brahmanism’ that they will raise slogans against Manuvaad and capitalism on his martyrdom day”, the minister said, referring to the event organised on February 9 at the JNU where anti-national slogans were allegedly raised, as per IANS. “What can I do?” he said. But they (government) will not let me speak because they are scared.
“We will not respond to things in bits and pieces, there will be a proper discussion”, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said. Rohith, a 26-year-old research scholar, was found hanging at the Hyderabad Central University last month.
Earlier Jyotiraditya Scindia batted for Congress using Rohith’s suicide and JNU row.
Irani said: “I am willing to answer any question”.
Kejriwal had Tuesday joined a protest in support of Rohith where he accused the Centre of waging a war against students and voiced his support for “Rohith Act”, a law proposed by agitating students against discrimination in universities.
Although these were were permitted to remain till finishing the inquest on the university, the regulators, she said, stopped these included in the program which contain Kanhayia Kumar Khalid among the others.
Samajwadi Party MP Javed Ali Khan said anti-national slogans and hate speeches both had the potential to divide the country, before going on to articulate the general perception that the BJP had “dug up Afzal to bury Vemula”.
He also suggested in the Rajya Sabha that the Congress, jointly with the Left parties, had jumped into the issue “without giving prior thought” in view of the upcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal. “Forgive me God, for reading this out”, she said. Ms. Irani said many VCs appointed by the UPA are still holding office.
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Athavale said “if a lesson needs to be taught to Pakistan, then India should attack it and free the parts of Jammu and Kashmir that it has captured”.
