Government trying to divert people's mind from its failures: Congress

The Congress on Friday said the central government's actions regarding JNU campus incidents were aimed at containing political dissent and it sought to divert people's mind from its failures.

The BJP-led government is a "master at diversions" and action should be taken only against those involved in anti-national actions, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the media here.

"You cannot display your intolerance, your complete lack of tolerating dissent of any kind... (this is) manifested all over the country everyday - one day in Hyderabad, one day in Delhi and one day in Jawaharlal Nehru University... as if you are here to fix dissent and each time this happens at the instance of your own student wing or your so-called 'parivar' elements - in this case the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarathi Parishad," Singhvi said.

"...arrest the guilty; please prosecute, but you cannot carry on a campaign... you are entering the campus, you are searching, you are painting the whole university as anti-national," the Congress leader said.

The Delhi Police on Friday arrested a student leader of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) here on charge of raising anti-India slogans during a demonstration on the campus to mark the hanging of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

Dozens of policemen swarmed the campus in south Delhi to look for more students suspected to be involved in the protest on Tuesday in JNU.

The police action came a day after Bharatiya Janata Party MP Maheish Girri lodged a complaint against the "anti-constitutional and anti-national elements" who participated in the demonstration.

Singhvi said he was speaking of dissent in a university setting.

"Universities are meant for free speech and open speech, subject to the strongest possible action against an individual who misuses it. The point is the capacity to tolerate a different point of view," he said.