The BJP continued to keep the pitch high on the JNU controversy and announced that it would “expose” anti-national forces through protests on the streets and discussion in Parliament.
The party wanted to know why the Congress had shifted from its previous “nationalistic” stance.
“In 2010, there was a celebratory meeting after 76 men of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were killed by Maoists in Chhattisgarh. The National Students Union of India (NSUI), which is the Congress’ student wing, joined forces with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the BJP, to protest and stop the meet. What happened to that patriotism of the Congress?” said BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma.
“We will raise the issue of nationalism in protests on the streets and we want a discussion on it in Parliament as well,” he added.
In fact, according to government managers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at an all-party meeting called by him on Tuesday, said that he too desired that “all views on nationalism, patriotism and what constitutes maryada (normative limits)” be discussed in Parliament.
The government, sources said, is keen to elaborate on the nature of the slogans that had been raised inside the JNU campus.
The government aims to play on the pro-Afzal Guru slogans that had been raised on the JNU campus on February 9.
“The discussion will not be specifically on JNU, but on higher education and campuses, and speakers will refer to the Rohith Vemula suicide at the University of Hyderabad,” said a source in the government.
The BJP, on its part, is hoping that at least a couple of the organisers of the Afzal Guru event are arrested by the time Parliament begins. “We also expect that Jawaharlal Nehru Students Union president Kanhaiyya Kumar will be out on bail by then,” said a source.
