Congress and JDU up the ante against Bandaru Dattatreya and Smriti Irani; demand their resignations

NEW DELHI: The Congress and JD(U) upped the ante against Union ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya and persisted with the demand for their resignations over the suicide of a Dalit student in Hyderabad Central University. While AICC maintained that the revocation of expulsion of four Dalit students “proves the guilt, complicity and collusion of BJP-ABVPuniversity authorities in perpetuating anti-poor, anti-Dalit agenda”, JD(U) president Sharad Yadav accused the Centre of pursuing “an anti-Dalit and anti-Backward community agenda.”

AICC chief spokesman RS Surjewala said: “The decision to revoke expulsion of four PhD scholars confirmed the lies, deception and falsehood meted out by HRD minister... We...demand Irani, Dattatreya and Appa Rao be immediately sacked.”

Yadav accused the government of working against the interests of students from deprived sections of the society. “The HRD ministry confessed that 40% of the reserved category seats continued to remain vacant,” he said while pointing out that “lack of support group for Dalit students, who face lot of pressure to succeed due to poor background, leads to disproportionately frequent suicides among such students”.