Hijab row: Congress leader Randeep Surjewala urges students to keep off 'fanatics on either side'

As the 'hijab controversy' in Karnataka assumed larger political and communal dimensions with ministers in BJP-ruled MP and Puducherry seeking to ban students wearing the Islamic headwear to educational institutions, the Congress leadership on Wednesday tried to position delicately on the matter by urging students to keep off "fanatics on either side".

"I call upon the parents as also our students and children to not let the self-serving rhetoric of the 1% of the fanatics on either side to sacrifice your future," Randeep Surjewala, AICC general secretary in-charge of Karnataka, said in a statement issued as an open letter to students of the southern state. "They are not interested in your education, your academic excellence, your bright future, but only in propping up their failed political interests."

He alleged that "the BJP government of Karnataka and its vested interests" were creating unwarranted issues to break the unity and spirit of students and youth, and also to deflect attention away from many failure of the BJP state regime. "If the students and our children succumb to their nefarious design, your future will be jeopardised at the altar of their politics," Surjewala said.