BJP spokesman Amit Malviya claimed on Saturday that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi politicised the issue for political gain, citing the Telangana Police closure report in the Rohith Vemula death case, which cleared Union Minister Smriti Irani and three other people.
Taking to his official X handle, the BJP’s IT Cell head shared a clip of Rahul purportedly addressing the Rohit Vemula death case in the Lok Sabha. In the clip, Rahul is heard questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘silence’ on the matter.
“Rahul Gandhi used the floor of the House to politicize Rohith Vemula’s death for his ugly politics. Now that Telangana Police, under a Congress government, has filed a closure report, stating that Vemula did not belong to the SC community and died by suicide, will Rahul Gandhi apologize to the Dalits? The Congress and so-called ‘secular’ parties have often used Dalits for their politics but have always failed to provide them justice. This is yet another instance,” Malviya posted on X.
Commenting on the closure report, BJP spokesperson Ajay Alok alleged that the Congress fabricated a false narrative surrounding Vemula’s death. In an interview with ANI, Alok stated, “The issue is not whether he (Rohith Vemula) was Dalit or not. Questions should be raised about those who did not allow Parliament to function, claiming that the BJP government is anti-Dalit. They politicized the issue and built a false narrative around it.”
However, the Telangana Director General of Police announced on Friday that they have opted to conduct further investigations into the death of the research scholar in January 2016. This decision followed days after the state police submitted a closure report in their probe into the matter. Vemula, a PhD scholar at the Hyderabad Central University, was discovered hanging from a ceiling fan in a hostel room on January 17, 2016. He allegedly felt distressed over disciplinary measures taken against him by the university.