Representative image. Photo: Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, Government of India (GODL-India), via Press Information Bureau
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and BJP leader JP Nadda sparred in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday over police action against student protesters.
Kharge referred to an attempt by a Delhi Police team to detain SFI leader Aishe Ghosh from the CPM’s AKG Bhavan office on Tuesday, terming it “very shameful” that police would “barge into a national party office and try to arrest.”
“I request you, people who have gone there unauthorised, they should be punished,” Kharge said in the House, adding, “Democracy is not safe, people are not safe.”
JP Nadda, responding as Leader of the House, defended the police response as “a very normal law and order situation that we have to understand,” maintaining that police had “acted according to the law and order situation.”
He added that “any student who is into activism will have to face such a situation,” pointing to his own arrest as a student activist during the Emergency as precedent.
The exchange follows the July 20 ‘Sansad Chalo’ march, in which protesters affiliated with the Cockroach Janta Party marched from Jantar Mantar towards Parliament over alleged exam paper leaks.
The march escalated after security personnel moved to stop it, with reports of lathi-charge and tear gas shelling during the confrontation.
The protests eventually led to the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on July 25, following weeks of agitation over exam-related issues.
The Rajya Sabha exchange came as the Lok Sabha continued to debate the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, aimed at curbing paper leak rackets.
The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, which proposes stricter penalties including imprisonment of up to 10 years and fines of up to Rs 50 lakh for organised paper leak rackets, has been under discussion in the Lok Sabha through the week.
(Image: Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, Government of India (GODL-India), via Press Information Bureau)
