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New Delhi, Feb 12: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has finally broken his silence albeit via Twitter. He accused the Prime Minister of ‘bullying’ an institution like Jawaharlal Nehru University because the famed institution will never toe the government line.
Gandhi has though made it clear that any anti-national sentiment was unacceptable, dissent and debate were part of democracy. “While anti-India sentiment is unquestionably unacceptable, the right to dissent & debate is an essential ingredient of democracy. Modi Govt & ABVP bullying an institution like JNU simply because it won’t toe their line is completely condemnable,” he said through tweets.
Earlier in the day, the opposition said the government action on the JNU campus was just divert the people’s attention from the failures and was aimed at gaining political mileage.
“You cannot display your intolerance, your complete lack of tolerating dissent of any kind… (this is) manifested all over the country everyday – one day in Hyderabad, one day in Delhi and one day in Jawaharlal Nehru University… as if you are here to fix dissent and each time this happens at the instance of your own student wing or your so-called ‘parivar’ elements – in this case the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarathi Parishad,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the media persons. (Also Read: National Herald case: Supreme Court to hear Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi’s plea today)
However, alarmed by the incident of commemorating Afzal Guru, Delhi Police suddenly sprang into action following orders from Home Minister Rajnath Singh and arrested Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar and sent him to three-day police custody. Dozens of policemen were comb searching the campus in south Delhi to spot more students suspected to be involved in the protest on Tuesday in JNU.
The police action came a day after Bharatiya Janata Party MP Maheish Girri lodged a complaint against the “anti-constitutional and anti-national elements” who participated in the demonstration.
Kumar was arrested on the charge of sedition, after “anti-India” slogans were allegedly ‘heard at the university during a recent protest meeting in memory of Afzal Guru, convicted and hanged in 2013 in the Parliament attack case.
Soon after the Centre hardened its stand, the university also initiated action, barring eight students from academic activity pending an enquiry, though they would be allowed to stay as guests in the hostels.
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