New Delhi, July 22 — Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Bansuri Swaraj on Wednesday alleged that Congress MP and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition (LoP), Rahul Gandhi, was running away from the duties of the Opposition and instead "only attempting to create a ruckus".
This comes a day after LoP Gandhi along with other senior Congress leaders and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav staged a sit-in near Prime Minister Narendra Modi's residence over the lathi charge on anti-NEET leak protestors, before being briefly detained by the police.
Addressing a press conference, Bansuri Swaraj reiterated the Centre's stand that both Prime Minister Modi and the NDA government always prioritise the interests of students. "We work to ensure protection of the students' future," she asserted.
Reacting to the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)-led agitation that has been demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the NEET paper leak, she said: "The movement, which CJP and other parties started, it was said that this is a students' movement. You will see, the government's attitude towards this movement has been sensitive."
Referring to Abhijeet Dipke's return from the US on June 6, the BJP MP said: "When he came on 6th June, Delhi Police gave him permission at the airport itself. Remember, Delhi Police did not wait for CJP's lawyers to arrive and ask permission from the police. Respecting democracy, Delhi Police permitted (the protest) on the same day, and though that permission expired at 5 p.m., the protesters remained sitting there. They staged a sit-in at Jantar Mantar for 21 days. The Delhi Police did not carry out any action to remove them (from the protest site)."
"The government allowed this protest as long as it was peaceful. It is your right to oppose in a democracy...even when the protest took place without permission, the government didn't create obstruction," she added.
She alleged that the CJP-led protest is being "politicised".
"The shocking part is that, on one hand, it is being claimed that this is a students' movement, but you can clearly see how it is being politicised. Opposition parties are using it to serve their political interests, while they themselves are not united. You saw yesterday how Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi sat outside the Prime Minister's residence, not at Jantar Mantar. We all know that the Prime Minister's residence is a high-security zone. Rahul Gandhi himself should know this. After all, he spent part of his childhood at the residence, so he cannot be unaware of these facts," she said.
Swaraj further accused LoP Gandhi of retracking from his statement.
"He (Rahul Gandhi) said that if the government is willing to discuss the issue in the Parliament then 'we will leave the place', since it the PM Modi-led government's policy to seek solutions through dialogue, Union MoS Jitendra Singh reached there and tried to forge a communication with Rahul ji. But the Lok Sabha LoP retracted from his statement," she said.
Moreover, the BJP MP claimed that no formal notice for a discussion on the paper leak has been submitted by the Opposition in the House.
She said: "Today the '193' notice was submitted in the Parliament, even I submitted a notice seeking an open discussion on the NEET examination...because the government has nothing to hide and is in fact committed to students' welfare. We are ready to answer the students of the country. But it seems that the Opposition is running away from its responsibilities."
"Even the notice for discussion (on NEET) was submitted by the treasury benches and not by the Opposition. No formal notice was submitted by the LoP. The House does not function on anybody's whims and fancies," she remarked.
Swaraj stated that since Rahul Gandhi has the means to raise his voice in the House, he was asked to do so in a formal manner and get off from the high security zone near PM Modi's residence, "but they don't want to fulfill the role of the Opposition and instead only create ruckus".