With Rahul grabbing the limelight by sharply reacting on the suicide of dalit research scholar Rohit Vemula of Hyderabad central university other political parties in the state also started feeling the need to react, but in their own way to the crisis. Rahul reaction was was intellectual and struck chord with the students.
While some parties are aggressive, some are hamstrung by electoral compulsions. Rahul flew down to Hyderabad to interact with family members of Rohit and the students agitating for social Justice, TRS’ reaction was muted. Though the incident is rocking the universities across the country, the chief minister of Telangana has not reacted on the suicide yet. But the matter seems to have been left to daughter and Nizambad MP Kavita. Kavita has been demanding action against Dattatreya since yesterday. On Tuesday her Telangana Jagruti army laid seize to the house of Dattatreya near Ramnagar in the city.
The reaction from TDP is also not up to par because of three reasons.
One, the BJP is TDP’s ally and union HRD minister Smriti Irani was too generous in allotting institutions of higher learning to AP. She personally visited Andhra Pradesh to lay foundation stones for major institutes in Chittoor district.
Two, further flare up of the issue and any damage to the BJP would affect the it’s poll prospects in GHMC elections.
Three, Vice Chancellor Prof Apparao is said to be the nominee of Chandrababu Naidu.
So, the party has not reacted commensurate with the suicide of a brilliant dalit research scholar. Only Reventh Reddy registered his protest. Later in evening the TDP’s dalit leader Dokka Manikyavaraprasad released a stingless press note. He expressed his condolences and asked for the appointment of a fact fining committee. TDP’s incapacity to raise to the occasion is the product of its friendship with BJP. In fact, TDP should have at least talked about the justice to the family of Rohit, as he is from Gurajala, Guntur , Andhra Pradesh.
Another party, to take a militant stand against the tragedy was the MIM. In tune with its anti-BJP policy, Party leader and MP Asaduddin Owaisi,who had been tweeting on the incident, rushed to HCU and met the students immediately after Rahul left the campus. He addressed them and extended solidarity to the agitation and the on-going hunger-strike .
The other party, which displayed restricted displeasure was the YSRC. Had it happened in Andhra Pradesh, Jagan would have launched a Vodarpu Yatra and shaken the entire state. When news came out early in the morning that Rahul was visiting HCU to express solidarity to dalit students, Jagan rang up to mother of Rohit and expressed his anguish.(later in evening he went to Uppal to meet family members of Rohit) He demanded justice to the family. YsRC has no great political stake either in Telangana or in Hyderabad to trumpet up on the issue. So, shouting from the roof tops, and immediately rushing on Vodarpu won’t be beneficial. So his party in the afternoon fielded party MLA Uppuleti Kalapana to react on the happenings on the campus. She demanded in a matter-of-fact-way a high level inquiry into the incident.
‘Dalits are being discriminated and the social boycott is a scar on the civil society. We demand that a high level committee should be constituted to probe into the events that led to the suicide of dalit scholar Rohit and bring all those responsible to book for driving him to such a situation.’ Kalpana said.
