Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal join student protest over Vemula & JNU row

NEW DELHI: Congress V-P Rahul Gandhi and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal joined Tuesday’s protests at the Jantar Mantar in support of Rohith Vemula and JNU students facing sedition charges. Both of them emphasised that the government was “oppressing students” and backed the demand of protest organisers — the Joint Committee for Social Justice — that a new “Rohith Act” be implemented to check caste discrimination on campuses.

“Leave education to educationists. It feels as if the government has opened a new front against Dalits. Everybody is unhappy with this government — Dalits, students, teachers, industrialists and traders,” said Kejriwal. He warned: “Modiji, don’t mess with the students, they will shake your chair.” He said: “I favour introduction of the Rohith Act to stop discrimination on campuses.”

Gandhi said: “(Mukherjee’s) entire speech was about the past. And I thought, this is the RSS thinking. They think about the past. Whenever our youth want to think about the future, the RSS tells them to think about the ancient past. We need a new law to ensure that the voice of the youth is not stifled.”