Students’ unrest in Puducherry Central University, closing down of central institutions in Rahul and Sonia Gandhi’s constituencies, drug problem in Punjab and plight of Urdu language figured in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
The House witnessed a brief spat between Minister for Information & Broadcasting Venkaiah Naidu and some Opposition members, including left and others when D Raja(CPI) claimed that ABVP and BJP were fomenting trouble in Central universities, including Puducherry, Hyderabad and Jawaharlal Nehru University.
He said the students’ council of Puducherry varsity recently brought out a magazine with photographs of Rohit Vemula and some others and expressed solidarity with them. Rohit, a student of Hyderabad University had committed suicide due to alleged discrimination. Raja claimed the magazine was banned after local ABVP and BJP workers protested leading to unrest in the university.
The left leader said unrest in JNU and Hyderabad university was also triggered by ABVP and BJP leading to sharp protest by Naidu. He said the Government cannot tolerate slogans supporting Afzal Guru and others and urged Raja to stick to the Puducherry issue. This led sharp exchanges for some time.
Accusing the Government of indulging in politics of vendetta, the Congress said central projects in Rae Bareli and Amethi, the lok Sabha constituencies of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi respectively, were being closed down. The charge was squarely rejected by Naidu.
Raising the issue, Pramod Tiwari (Congress) said a branch of Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Information in Amethi was closed down. Moreover, a food park project was stopped besides Hindustan Paper Mill in Jagdishpur closed down.
leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said in last two years, if so many central projects were closed down in the constituency of Congress president and vice-president, “it forces us to think what is the reason.”
Responding to these charges, Naidu said the Government was not trying to take any revenge and said the food park project was shelved during UPA rule. Regarding other projects, Naidu said he would bring it to the notice of ministers concerned and “will ask them to explain to you the reasons and the background.”
The issue of drug abuse, particularly among the youth in Punjab that goes to polls in a few months, led to members of ruling NDA and Opposition Congress trading charges. Ambika Soni (Congress) said the government was not serious about the problem of drugs and that is why no survey was conducted by it on the extent of the abuse.
Dismissing the accusation, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Vijay Sampla said the survey was to be carried out every five years and the intentions of Congress were clear from the fact that it did not carry out any such survey in last decade.
On the issue of Urdu, Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said the government was taking steps to promote the language but has no plans to make it compulsory in school education.
He said ahead of the new national education policy, Urdu books were readily provided from Classes 1 to 12 and training of Urdu teachers was also on adding the Centre has provided Rs 62 crore to the National Council for promotion of Urdu language in the last two years.