JNU row, attack by lawyers "vicious" replay of Emergency, says Yechury

Slamming the government over the Jawaharlal Nehru University row, Communist Party of India-Marxist chief Sitaram Yechury on Saturday said it was a “more vicious replay” of what happened during Emergency and alleged that polarisation now is much worse than during partition and the demolition of Babri mosque.

“What else is this but a replay in a more vicious manner of what happened in the Emergency? In the Emergency, I was arrested, I was taken to the court. I was not and we were not assaulted in the court room,” Yechury told CNN-IBN.

He was referring to the new testimony on camera of student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, who has been booked on sedition charge, in which he said that he was beaten up, pushed to the ground and injured by men in lawyers’ robes before the police, when he was brought to the Patiala House court premises on February 17.

Maintaining that it worries him that the government does not want a common ground, the CPI-M general secretary said, “what they are seeking is polarisation. Polarisation is much worse than what it was during the time of partition and the demolition of Babri Masjid”.

Comparing the scenario with what was witnessed during the Indira Gandhi regime, he said every opposition to the government policy was then blamed on the foreign hand.

“Forty years down the line, a government of modern Indian republic again goes foreign hand. Our prime minister saying that Opposition and foreign funded NGOs were trying to destabilise his government,” Yechury said, alleging that this is the building of “hate campaign (by the Bharatiya Janata Party) against its opponents”.

Condemning some BJP leaders, who made controversial remarks against Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and CPI leader D Raja, Yechury said, “they are spreading calumny and hatred. They are actually anti-national”.

In remarks laced with sarcasm, Yechury said, “you (BJP and RSS) glorify Nathuram Godse, the murderer of Mahatma Gandhi as a nationalist hero and I am anti-national”.