Smriti Irani telling one lie after another : Arvind Kejriwal on Rohith Vemula's suicide
"Smriti Irani ji spoke one lie after another and tried to create controversy over Rohith's caste", he said after interacting with student protesters at the university campus.
Kejriwal also met Rohith's parents.
Kejriwal, an avowed enemy of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the party-led NDA government at the Centre, has described Rohith's death as the "murder of democracy" and his Aam Aadmi Party has demanded action against union ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya, who they blame for the student's suicide.
Rohith was one of the five students, who were suspended by the University authorities allegedly for beating up a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the students' wing of the BJP.They were barred from the hostel and cafeteria and allowed only for classes and in the library.
Labour Minister Dattatreya had written to the education department demanding action against Rohith, 26, and four other Dalit research scholars over the incident of the alleged assault.
Attacking Dattatreya, Kejriwal said it was "shameful" that a minister used words like "extremist, casteist and anti-national" in his letter "without inquiring into facts."
Massive student protests have been taking place in Hyderabad and in other cities over Rohith's death. The protesters allege that the five Dalit students were subjected to caste discrimination.
They also allege that Irani's ministry pushed for the students to be punished by sending five reminders to the university's Vice Chancellor after another union minister Bandaru Dattatreya wrote to the Education Ministry demanding action against them.
Irani said at a press conference on Wednesday that Rohith Vemula's suicide is being misrepresented with "malicious intent" as "a Dalit vs non-Dalit confrontation."
She also denied that her ministry pushed for the students to be punished. She described the letters that her ministry sent to the university as standard procedure for complaints filed by parliamentarians.
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
