Rohith Vemula suicide: Congress accuses BJP of inaction

Congress has been demanding sacking of the two Union ministers involved and removal of the University Vice Chancellor

As Rahul Gandhi went on a day-long fast in Hyderabad on Rohith Vemula issue, Congress today accused BJP of failing to initiate action against its leaders including Union ministers for the suicide of the Dalit scholar.

"Who has resorted to politics in the matter? It is the BJP. Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya wrote to HRD Minister Smriti Irani against the dalit students following complaint from the ABVP President. The HRD Minister wrote as many as five letters to the University," senior party spokesman Ajay Maken told reporters.

Wondering whether this was not politicisation, he accused BJP General Secretary Murlidhar Rao of making the "patently false" charge that Rohit was not a dalit and that the dalit scholars had links with the Naxals.

He said the Congress Vice President has gone to Hyderabad to take up the cause of the students. "As an alert opposition leader, he is taking up issues relating to dalits, poor and farmers and going wherever injustice is being done".

Congress has been demanding sacking of the two Union ministers and removal of the University Vice Chancellor.

The Congress criticism came soon after BJP accused it of shedding "crocodile tears" over suicide of a Dalit scholar and attacked Gandhi for using students as a "political tool" after he joined them at the Hyderabad Central University for a day-long fast over the issue this morning.