Rahul Gandhi should apologise for politicising Rohith Vemula’s death, says Sitharaman

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman spoke at the Decan college in Pune on Saturday.

Senior BJP leader and union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman demanded on Saturday that Rahul Gandhi apologise to the nation for “politicising” Rohith Vemula’s death by suicide. In her interaction with editors in Pune, Sitharaman accused the Congress leader of trying to draw political mileage” out of the University of Hyderabad doctoral student’s death in 2016 by raising the issue in Parliament and in street protests.

According to the closure report submitted on Friday in the Telangana high court by the police of the Congress-ruled state, Vemula was not Dalit and died because he was “feeling frustrated” and on account of constant fears that his real caste identity would be discovered. Vemula’s suicide had sparked a nationwide movement on caste discrimination in educational institutions.

However, as the 60-page closure report triggered a political row amid the ongoing Lok Sabha election campaign, the state police subsequently announced that they would seek the court’s permission to further investigate the case.

“Rahul Gandhi should apologise by standing before the entire scheduled caste community for misusing Vemula’s death,” said Sitharaman when her response was sought on the closure report, which gave a clean chit—citing lack of evidence—to all the accused, including BJP leaders and the party’s student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.

“By making it the Dalit community’s issue, Rahul Gandhi propagated toxicity ki dukaan,” the minister added, taking a dig at Gandhi’s usage of ‘mohabbat ki dukaan (shop of love) during his Bharat Jodo Yatra last year. The Congress, which is ruling Telangana, had, along with Gandhi, publicly stood by the Vemula family as protests raged in 2016. Rahul Gandhi even walked with Vemula’s mother, Radhika, during the first phase of his Bharat Jodo Yatra.

“Intolerance, political interference and hate do not lie in the government but in the vested interest groups who don’t lose an opportunity to bring this toxin into centres of higher education,” said Sitharaman, adding that Rohith Vemula had his dignity which should have been respected.

The minister also chose to interpret Rahul Gandhi’s promise of a caste census in the Congress manifesto as a “redistribution of wealth”, a bogey that is being raised by the BJP government. On Friday, Gandhi, while addressing a public meeting in Pune, had stressed that his party, if voted to power, would conduct a caste census to know each community’s share in jobs in various sectors, and also promised to increase the 50 per cent cap on reservation quotas to this end.

When asked why PM Narendra Modi was constantly giving a religious spin to the issue of wealth redistribution, Sitharaman said the Congress had consistently been talking about carrying out an “X-ray of wealth” and a caste census. “Therefore, the PM has been raising the issue because there is not just a trend but a written word and spoken word as well. He is asking questions,” she said. Modi has been repeatedly asserting in his public rallies that the Congress, if voted to power, plans to redistribute people’s assets to Muslims.

Sitharaman also claimed that the Congress government in Karnataka knew about the tapes of JD(S) leader Prajwal Revanna, accused of sexually abusing scores of women. “But they chose to remain silent until the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections got over because they were afraid of losing Vokkaliga votes,” she said. “Now they are making a noise.”

Responding to a question on whether the Prajwal Revanna case would have an impact on her party’s election performance in Karnataka, Sitharaman said that union home minister Amit Shah had already made it clear that the party would not tolerate “matters that went against women”. She said that though the JD(S) was the BJP’s alliance partner, the BJP had clarified that the sexual abuse was not acceptable.

Asked about BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s son Karan Singh getting a ticket from the party in UP’s Kaiserganj constituency, Sitharaman said that the allegations against the MP had not been proved yet. Brij Bhushan is accused of sexually harassing women wrestlers.

“Nothing is proven against Brij Bhushan,” said Sitharaman. “Even if he is convicted, why do you want to carry the blame on to the son? Even convicted people’s children have been entertained by so many parties.”

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