Kejriwal warns of ‘dictatorship’ if SC orders are ignored
Seeking President Pranab Mukherjee’s intervention for immediate action to “check the state of lawlessness and subversion of democratic rights” in the country, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday called the JNU row and the Patiala House court violence as a “blot” on India’s image. As Mr Gandhi accused the government of detroying educational institutions and crushing students’ freedom of expression, the BJP hit back saying he had hit a “new low” by supporting “anti-national” voices and said his assertion that nationalism “runs in his blood” was an attempt to “defend” himself after his stand on the issue “sparked anger in the country”. The BJP asserted that the Indian Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, but it comes with a “lakshman rekha”.
It asked the Congress not to play with “students’ future” by “politicising” higher educational institutions.
Citing the JNU incident and the anti-India slogans shouted there, the BJP said while the Left had a record of siding with such anti-India forces, the Congress too has now joined hands with them.
AAP president and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal also attacked the Narendra Modi government for the Patiala House incident and claimed such a situation could lead to “dictatorship” in the country. Mr Kejriwal insisted that the courts be “shut down” if issues like what is anti-national were to be adjudged outside the judiciary.
Alleging that across India, whether in JNU or Hyderabad Central University, in FTII and other places of learning, students were being “bullied and threatened”, a Congress delegation led by Mr Gandhi told the President: “As the patron of universities, we call upon you to protect their freedom and uphold the values that built our nation.” The BJP accused the Opposition party of politicising the issue to derail the government’s development agenda ahead of the Budget Session of Parliament.
Hitting back at the BJP for its “anti-national” dig at him, Mr Gandhi asserted that “nationalism is in my blood. I have seen my family sacrifice again and again and again for this nation”.
“Such lawlessness in defiance of a Supreme Court directive on two occasions by the same set of people, some of whom are identified with the ruling dispensation on various fora, cannot be but without the tacit support, encouragement or at best, the indifference of the ruling establishment”, the Congress team told the President. It said the attack on the press appears designed to intimidate and threaten the fourth pillar of democracy, to prevent it from doing its job without fear or favour.
Countering Mr Gandhi’’s offensive, BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma alleged that the Congress leader has hit a “new low” by supporting “anti-national” voices. Accusing the Congress of “crying over the death of terrorists”, Mr Sharma said Mr Gandhi’s meeting with the President and his assertion that nationalism runs in his blood was meant to “defend” himself after his stand on the issue “sparked anger in the country”.
Rejecting Mr Gandhi’s attack on the RSS, Mr Sharma said he kept repeating what he had “rehearsed” and that his family had a history of “abusing” the Hindutva outfit to remain in power. “The RSS has only grown stronger with their attacks,” he said.
In a jibe at Mr Gandhi over his assertion that nationalism runs in his blood, Mr Sharma raked up an article in a Congress journal that had called Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s father a “fascist”. A red-faced Congress had sacked the content editor after the controversy.
Talking to reporters after meeting the President over the JNU row, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said if the Supreme Court’s orders were not followed barely 200 meters from where it sits, “then there will be no such thing called the Constitution. Then it will be the Centre’s and the Prime Minister’s dictatorship. This is something very serious.
There is no judiciary after that”.
