The debate in Rajya Sabha on Rohith
Vemula suicide and JNU, revolved round nationalism as the government
defended its position and the opposition tried its best to project it a
fascist regime.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Parliament
Attack convict Afzal Guru's hanging was described as a "judicial
killing" by the organisers of the JNU event on February 9, and that was
indefensible.
Intervening in the debate, Finance Minister
Jaitley accused the opposition of giving respectability to those who
"talk of breaking up India." "Neither the NDA or BJP professes only one
ideology should prevail in this country," he said.
"Hate speech is not freedom of expression," Mr
Jaitley said as he questioned the opposition for supporting JNU students
charged with sedition.
Ghulam Nabi Azad, Leader of the Opposition in the
Rajya Sabha said "On the issue of secularism and nationalism, you (BJP)
stay in a glass palace. We stay in a safe stone house...if we throw
even one stone, the whole glass palace will fall."
Earlier, CPM General Secretary Sitaram Yechury,
who began the debate and accused the Modi government of "partisan
intervention" in the Jawaharlal Nehru University or JNU row. Students of
the university have been arrested on sedition charges over an event
where anti-India slogans were raised.
"In the name of that (nationalism) to penalise the
university as a whole. That I think is unfortunate," Mr Yechury said,
and added, "You don't have to teach us patriotism," attacking Home
Minister Rajnath Singh and Education Minister Smriti Irani for their
speeches in a similar debate in the Lok Sabha yesterday.
Mr Singh had ended the Lok Sabha debate on
Wednesday by assuring the house that, "No innocent student will be
harassed." He also said, "If slapping of sedition charge was right, the
court will uphold it, if it was wrong, the court will quash it. But let
the court take a view on it."
Choking with emotion, Ms Irani had delivered what
many saw as the speech of the day. A combative Ms Irani attacked the
opposition which has targeted her over Mr Vemula's suicide, alleging her
ministry pressured the university to punish the Dalit scholar days
before he killed himself. "Don't turn education a political
battleground. Don't use our children as vote banks," she said.
The minister also attacked Congress vice president
Rahul Gandhi on his support for JNU students charged with sedition.
"Have you ever seen Rahul Gandhi go to one spot twice? Never. But in
this, he saw political opportunity," the minister said.
The debate was to have begun in the Rajya Sabha on
Wednesday afternoon, but the upper house was adjourned for the day as
BSP lawmakers shouted slogans, trooped into the well of the House and
forced repeated adjournments, attacking Ms Irani and the Modi government
over Mr Vemula's suicide.
It blew a gaping hole in the agreement between the
government and the opposition on ensuring a "disruption-free session."
At a meeting before the session began the Congress-led Opposition had
said Parliament would function if the government agreed to debate key
issues before taking up important legislative work like the Goods and
Services Tax bill.
