Hitting back at BJP chief Amit Shah for attacking Rahul Gandhi over the JNU row, the Congress on Monday said those once “externed by the Supreme Court over criminal charges” should not teach patriotis
Hitting back at BJP chief Amit Shah for attacking Rahul Gandhi over the JNU row, the Congress on Monday said those once “externed by the Supreme Court over criminal charges” should not teach patriotism to the Congress, which has played a “stellar role” in the freedom movement.
Party chief spokesman Randeep Surjewala told reporters here that it is ironical that those who are “inheritors of the thought process of Nathuram Godse” are giving new definition of patriotism and love for the nation.
He said it was “distressing and condemnable” that “those who helped the British and sided with them” in the freedom movement and whose parent organisation RSS did not hoist the national flag at its headquarters in Nagpur for 52 years were teaching nationalism to the Congress. Targeting PM Narendra Modi and former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, he alleged that those “whose quest for propagating personal leadership surpassed the interest of the nation” and which led to the Kargil war first and then attacks in Dinanagar, Udhampur and finally Pathankot should not teach lessons of patriotism to the Congress.
Mr Surjewala also recalled the terror strike on Parliament and freeing dreaded terrorists like Masood Azhar in Kandahar during the Vajpayee regime.
He alleged that there was a pattern to the row in JNU which showed a “concerted conspiracy” of the Modi government and its attitude of “intolerance”.
He recalled the problems faced by students earlier at FTII, Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle in IIT Madras and Hyderabad Central University where Rohith Vemula committed suicide.
Seeking to dismiss criticism on the Afzal Guru issue, he said the party believed that the Indian Union is strong enough that “we will give fair treatment and a fair trial to the worst of our enemies and if that was not our belief and if that was not part of our founding ethos, then Afzal Guru terrorist would not have been convicted up to the Supreme Court and punished through due process (sic)”.
“But the truth is that the Modi government is suppressing the voice of democracy, the voice of freedom, the freedom of expression and voice of the young students and there is a pattern to it,” he said.
