Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi trying to politicise suicide, flays BJP

Rahul Gandhi, who flew in here from Delhi in the morning and drove straight from the airport to the Hyderabad University campus where he addressed the agitating students, alleged that the institution instead of operating fairly has used its power to “crush” the freedom of students to express. 

“The youth, who came here to improve the country, to learn and to express himself was put in so much pain that he had no option but to kill himself. Certainly he has committed suicide but conditions for his suicide were created by the Vice Chancellor, the minister and the institution,” he told the students, one of whom said before his speech that they did not want any politicising of the issue. He demanded “strictest punishment” for Vice-Chancellor and the minister holding them “responsible” for the death of the research scholar. 

The Congress Vice President also chose the occasion to flag the need for a legislation to protect the interests of the students. “We should not let the ball fall here. We should keep the flag up. In the future, we should create a legislation, a law which gives certain minimum rights to every Indian student, minimum rights with regard to the freedom of ideas and expression. One can express those ideas regardless of who they are, what caste they are, where they come from, what religion they have,” Gandhi said. Earlier, Gandhi paid tributes to Vemula by garlanding a memorial “stupa” put up in the university. He also spent some time with family members of Vemula and consoled them. 

BJP general secretary P Muralidhar Rao attacked Rahul Gandhi for “unprincipled” behaviour, saying that the same Congress which had “harassed” Dalit leader B R Ambedkar “all his life” was now trying to project itself as champion of Dalit cause. He alleged that Rohith Vemula’s suicide has been made into political issue by “Congress, section of media and some groups with vested interests”. Rohith Vemula was among the five research scholars who were suspended by Hyderabad Central University (HCU) in August last year and also one of the accused in the case of assault on a student leader. Union Labour Minister Dattatreya and Hyderabad University VC Appa Rao and three others were on Monday named in an FIR lodged with the Cyberabad police over the alleged suicide of the dalit student.