Amid the furore over the JNU unrest and an IIMC professor quitting on grounds of supporting Hyderabad University scholar Rohith Vemula, the Congress on Saturday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre of actively trying to silence the voices of the youth and alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was getting consistently vexed by the student community.
"The BJP wants to silence the voices of the youth. Even in Parliament, when our young leader Rahul Gandhi speaks up, they pounce on him and do not allow him to speak. We have been noticing for the past two years that the Prime Minister is getting greatly vexed by the students and youth," Congress leader Pramod Tiwary told ANI.
Echoing similar sentiments, Congress leader Sandeep Dixit told ANI that the government was trying to put their foot on people making speeches which in no way amounted to sedition.
"From the evidence that has come out, whatever Kanhaiya said was within the confines of the Indian Constitution and there was nothing wrong in it. For somebody to support the fact that there must be freedom of expression and when he or she gets punished because of that, it is unfortunate," Dixit said.
The government, which has come under sharp criticism in the wake of the JNU row, had to face yet another embarrassment yesterday following the resignation of IIMC professor Amit Sengupta.
Sengupta, an Associate Professor of English Journalism department at the IIMC, quit after an order was issued transferring him to the premier media school's campus in Odisha's Dhenkanal district.
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Stating that the order to move him was issued without any discussion with me or any faculty member, he dubbed the decision to be politically motivated.
Earlier on Friday, JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar asserted that nationalism cannot be anyone's 'patented' idea while stating that he has full faith in the Indian Constitution as it was a document which can't be 'doctored'.
"We will not say anything based on merit. We believe in the law and the constitution. The government belongs to the nation, but it has turned into the government of a party. We need to make them realise that they owe their allegiance to the nation. The way the campus is facing the ire of the nation because of a conspiracy, we want to tell the nation that JNU is the voice of the nation. Sedition must not be used to attack students, we know the meaning of freedom," Kanhaiya told the media after being released from Tihar Jail.
The government has warned Kanhaiya that he must help the concerned authorities to see that activities similar to the February 9 event are curbed in the university rather than enjoying the publicity.