Central Govt. totally guilty for Dalit scholar's suicide: Congress

Attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the suicide of a Dalit scholar from the University of Hyderabad, the Congress Party on Wednesday said the Government of India was totally guilty for what had happened

"If students won't express their opinion in Universities, then where will they? ABVP misused the office of HRD minister.. I think the government of India is totally guilty on what happened," Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit told ANI here.

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"I think that the students demand is completely genuine. Mrs. Irani is more guilty than the vice-chancellor. Vice-chancellor is guilty of not applying his mind perhaps tried to butter his own position by following Government of India's order. Smriti Irani has done things that are unconstitutional. She is an incapable fascist minister," he added while blaming Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani of putting undue pressure.

Resonating similar sentiments Congress Spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi condemned the incident in the strongest possible language.

"After exoneration, if a person is convicted then it is purely because of pressure from two Ministers and Ministries.This is because a political entity like the ABVP was involved. It is only because two central ministers were involved, it is to treat a person who is a protected categorically under the ST/SC Act," he added.

Trying to shield the human resource development minister the BJP on the other hand alleged that an opportunist Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is trying to score some political brownie points out of a very tragic incident in the University of Hyderabad.

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said the Congress and other political parties have become politically bankrupt now, adding that their move to play politics over the Dalit scholar's suicide was a testimony to the fact.

Another BJP leader Siddharth Nath Singh said the leaders of various political parties are visiting the Hyderabad University not for humanity or Dalit cause, but for their own political interests.

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"They have no interest on the Dalit cause or humanity as such. If they had, I may ask all of them, including the TMC leaders, Arvind Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi and also Sitaram Yechury...what happened in May 2015 when three Dalits were shot by the TMC leaders in Nadia district of West Bengal? Nobody went there. Why did not anybody go to Kaliachak? It was a national security issue," he added.

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The Congress vice-president, who visited the University of Hyderabad yesterday, said that the varsity Vice Chancellor Appa Rao and Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya created the situation that made Rohith Vemula, a Dalit scholar studying there, kill himself.

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"I agree with the students here. Rohith committed suicide but the conditions for his suicide were created by the VC and the minister," Gandhi said.

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Rohith Vemula, who belonged to Guntur district of Amravati, was found hanging in his hostel room on Sunday. He was doing his PhD in science technology and society studies for the past two years.

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The protests escalated yesterday over Rohith's suicide with activists demonstrating outside the residence of Dattatreya, who has been accused of abetment of the Dalit scholar's suicide and demanded his resignation.