Youth Congress wants a debate on nationalism after Rahul Gandhi accused of sedition

BENGALURU: The Youth Congress in Karnataka, the biggest state ruled by the party, is starting a public discussion on nationalism after their chairperson Rahul Gandhi has been accused of sedition against the nation in an FIR filed in Telangana.

The Youth Congress will do a padayatra in Bengaluru on Wednesday a, followed by a rally at Freedom Park where a 25-minute documentary will be screened, countering the sedition charges in the complaint filed by advocate Sunkari Janardhan Goud in the Saroornagar police station on February 27. “We want to raise the question of what is national and anti-national and debate it. How can the BJP or their affiliates decide what is nationalism? We want to talk about the nationalism that is laid down in our Constitution,” Karnataka’s Youth Congress chief Rizwan Arshad told ET.

The documentary will show the speeches made by Rahul Gandhi at JNU and at the Hyderabad central university, which he visited twice at the height of the agitation over the suicide of PhD scholar Rohith Vemula. Vemula was also accused of being anti-national, casteist and extremist in a letter written by Union labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya to the union human resources development ministry. The documentary will also have the full speech made JNU students union leader Kanhaiya Kumar, for which he has been arrested. “We want people to know what the real story is. We will take this documentary to colleges and we will also invite the (BJP student wing) ABVP to counter this through debate with us,” Arshad said.

The complaint in Telangana has accused Rahul Gandhi and six national leaders, along with Kanhaiya Kumar and research scholar Umar Khalid of working against the welfare of the country. The student union leaders are accused of shouting anti-India slogans at a cultural event in JNU on February 9 to mark the hanging of Afzal Guru, whom the Supreme Court convicted for attacking the Parliament on December 13, 2001. The national leaders are accused of extending support to them.

The Youth Congress in Delhi is doing a Parliament gherao on Wednesday, seeking the dismissal of Union HRD minister Smriti Irani over the Hyderabad central university and JNU incidents, terming them an “attack on the student community.” “We want the minister to be sacked and justice for Rohith Vemula and Kanhaiya Kumar,” Indian Youth Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Brar said.