Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused the Narendra Modi government of "bullying" an institution like the Jawaharlal Nehru University because it will not toe to its line.
In tweets, Gandhi said that while any anti-India sentiment was unacceptable, dissent and debate were part of democracy.
"While anti-India sentiment is unquestionably unacceptable, the right to dissent & debate is an essential ingredient of democracy.
"Modi Govt & ABVP bullying an institution like JNU simply because it won't toe their line is completely condemnable," he said.
Congress had said earlier in the day that 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.
"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," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the media here.
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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.