The Modi government appeared to be on the back foot as the Opposition leaders closed ranks to corner HRD Minister Smriti Irani over “inaccuracies” in her reply to Parliament on the suicide by Dalit student Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad University.
As the Congress, Left and the JD(U) announced that they will move a Breach of Privilege Motion against Smriti for “misleading the Parliament” on the Hyderabad varsity incident, BJP fielded its spokesperson M J Akbar on Sunday to clarify that the minister’s reply in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha was based on information she had received from the Telangana Police.
A minister makes any statement in Parliament on the basis of official and police accounts, was Akbar’s refrain at the BJP briefing. “If police stated that, then she would say only what they had stated, and if something more comes out in the course of investigation or time, then those things would also be incorporated,” he said.
The Congress along with CPM and JD (U) accused Smriti of “willfully misleading” Parliament and “being economical with truth” on the suicide of Vemula. In fiery speeches in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, Smriti had hit out at Rahul Gandhi while rejecting the Opposition’s accusations of “unwarranted interference” by the Modi government in dealing with Vemula’s case.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had lauded Smriti’s performance in Parliament on Twitter. Rahul had hit back at Modi by posting a video of Rohith’s mother Radhika.
Radhika had questioned the basis on which the minister had declared Rohith as “anti-national”. Opposition leaders were also banking on the statements of the chief medical officer M Rajasree, who had contradicted Smriti’s claims in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that no doctor was allowed near Rohith to revive him and his body “was used as a political tool”.
