The government crackdown in JNU today found echo in Bihar Legislative Assembly with a CPI-ML MLA urging the House to pass a resolution to protest the arrest of the university's students union president Kanhaiyya Kumar on sedition charge "without evidence".
The demand was made by Communist Party of India (Marxist-Lenin) MLA Mehboob Alam during the Zero Hour in the Assembly, who alleged that the BJP and the RSS have triggered a controversy at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in a bid "to impose right wing ideology" there.
The police had arrested JNUSU president Kumar, who hails from Begusarai in Bihar, on February 12, a day after a case of sedition and criminal conspiracy was registered against him connection with an event in the varsity's campus in which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.
The MLA from Balrampur in Katihar district also referred to the death of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad Central University and sought resignation of Union HRD minister Smriti Irani and Labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya over the issue.
Speaker Vijay Kumar Chaudhary did not give any ruling on the CPI-ML member's demand.
Earlier, Alam and another CPI-ML MLA had staged a protest outside the main gate of the Assembly to condemn the events at JNU and Hyderabad University.
There are three CPI-ML MLAs in the 243-member Bihar Assembly.
