Left parties, Janata Parivar meet Pranab, demand action on JNU row

All Opposition parties are knocking on the doors of President Pranab Mukherjee over the arrest of JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar, the attack against journalists and other violent incidents in various parts of the country.

A day after Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal met Mukherjee on the same issues, the Left parties, along with the JD(U), RJD and the NCP urged the President to prevail upon the Centre to withdraw from the “dangerous course that it has adopted”.

Strongly condemning the attack against the Left and all other democratic and secular forces in the country, allegedly by the RSS-BJP activists, the parties told the President that by spreading the canard of being “anti-national” the RSS-BJP had mounted an attack against the Indian people.

“While strongly condemning the attack mounted by the RSS under the patronage of this BJP-led NDA government against the Jawaharlal Nehru University, we, the undersigned, see this as part of a larger design by the communal forces to carry forward their agenda in institutions of higher learning. This systemic pattern is clearly visible in the incidents in Film and Television Institute of India, Hyderabad Central University leading to the tragic suicide of Rohit Vemula, the incidents in IIT Chennai and now in Jadavpur University,” the leaders said in the memorandum submitted to President.

“Further, such attacks are part of the efforts to sharpen communal polarisation in the country,” it said.

They urged the President to ensure the release Kanhaiya Kumar. “No harassment and witch-hunting must be allowed. The truth has now come out that most of the evidence produced by the government was fabricated. Those who have fabricated the evidence and propagated it must be punished under the law,” the memorandum added.

Earlier, a meeting of the Left parties said the attack on them and the JNU was part of an agenda to polarise the country. “Such attacks are part of the efforts to sharpen communal polarisation in the country to also divert the attention of the people from the growing burdens being imposed upon them by the total failure of this NDA-led Modi government on all fronts,” they said.

The Left parties have also decided to call for an all India protest from February 23 to 25, against the “machinations” of the Centre.

A group of journalists, including those who were attacked by advocates at the Patiala House Courts premises, had met the President on Thursday. Expressing concern at the systematic targeting of the journalist community, they said the matter merits attention at the highest possible level. “Nine journalists filed a written complaint at the Tilak Marg Police Station giving details of the physical assault against which no FIR till date has been registered. Nor were they called for the recording of their individual statements. Instead, the Police Commissioner trivialised the entire episode,” the memorandum said.

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