The ongoing face-off between the Centre and the Opposition is set to intensify next week. Major Opposition parties on Saturday decided to bring privilege motion against HRD Minister Smriti Irani for “misleading” Parliament on the suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad Central University and the JNU row.
The Congress, the CPI (M) and the JD(U) announced their plan of action against Irani, who had hit out at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and the left during a debate on the JNU and Hyderabad University controversies in Parliament.
“The HRD Minister has not only been economical with truth but has also willfully misled Parliament on the unfortunate suicide of a young Dalit student, Rohith Vemula”, Congress general secretary Mukul Wasnik and senior spokesperson Kumari Selja alleged.
The development comes after Rohith’s mother Radhika on Friday attacked Irani for “telling lies”. She met Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday even as NSUI activists staged a protest against Irani and demanded her resignation over the controversies.
For his part, Rahul Gandhi took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his ‘Satyamev Jayate’ tweet after Irani’s fiery speech in the lok Sabha. He asked Modi to hear the version of mother of Rohith Vemula. “Satyameva Jayate! Modiji do hear these words of Rohith Vemula’s mother,” Rahul tweeted.
At the AICC briefing, Wasnik said that the Congress planned to bring privilege motion in the lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha soon, while CPI(M) leader Mohd Saleem said he would be doing so on Monday.
“I will be giving a notice for breach of privilege against Irani to lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan for misleading the House on Rohith Vemula issue,” Saleem said.
JD (U) leader and Rajya Sabha member KC Tyagi too said that he and nominated member KTS Tulsi will give privilege notice against Irani to Chairman Hamid Ansari on Monday. “There are contradictions in many statements of Irani regarding Rohith Vemula case. This is a fit case of breach of privilege,” Tyagi told The Pioneer. The members cited the outburst of Radhika against the HRD Minister and accused the BJP of being anti-Dalit.
“Your Ministry had written that my Rohith and other Dalit students were anti-national extremists. You said that he is not a Dalit. You accused him of getting a false certificate,” Radhika, along with her younger son had said at the Press conference. They alleged that these strong words from a mother “who has lost her son to the BJP and in particular the HRD Minister’s campus politics is a stamp of how recklessly and ruthlessly their party is hell bent on clamping down the voices of dissent.”
Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said Irani was “too clever by half and then you get caught in your own web and that’s exactly what has happened to the HRD Minister”.