Congress’ democracy is selective: Dharmendra Pradhan on police action against Jharkhand students

New Delhi: Former Union Education Minister and Sambalpur MP Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday launched a sharp attack on Congress, alleging that the party’s commitment to democracy is ‘selective’.

He accused the opposition party of resorting to violence against youth in states where it is in power while spreading misinformation and creating disruption where it seeks political advantage.

Taking to social media platform X, Pradhan alleged that the Congress party has been continuously misleading students and spreading falsehoods.

“Congress is continuously spreading lies regarding students’ interests; RahulGandhi lacks facts, and the Leader of Opposition, who habitually lies, neither wants to come to Parliament nor listen to answers. They just want to spread their lies and shed crocodile tears,” Pradhan said in his post.

The BJP leader also criticised Congress for making allegations against Union Home Minister Amit Shah, calling them baseless and politically motivated.

“Making baseless, factless false accusations against the Honorable Home Minister Shri Amit Shah ji reveals the political desperation of Rahul Gandhi and the Congress. The government is ready for discussion in Parliament on every issue, but Congress is obstructing the temple of democracy ‘Parliament House’ and crushing the interests of the country and the youth,” he said.

Pradhan further said that their intention is not the welfare of the country.

“Because their intention is not the welfare of the country, but to prioritise their own interests first. When there is discussion in the House, these people create chaos outside, because they do not have the capacity to listen to answers in the House,” he said.

Continuing his attack, Pradhan said, “Congress’s democracy is also ‘Selective,’ violence against youth where they are in government, and lies and commotion where they want to shine politically. The brutality against students in Jharkhand has been witnessed by the entire country. But the question is, why is Rahul Gandhi, who holds press conferences on every issue, maintaining silence today? The youth of the country have fully understood this duplicitous character of the Congress. There is no place for dictatorship in democracy; Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party, which operates on the mindset of the Emergency era, should understand this well.”

Earlier on August 9, Dharmendra Pradhan had broken his silence on his resignation, saying he approached Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address the aspirations of students protesting over the NEET examination controversy and stressing that “nothing is above the nation’s interest”.

Speaking at events in Sambalpur and Rairakhol on Saturday (August 8), Pradhan said the younger generation had been subjected to attempts to “mislead” them during the protests, but maintained that he had no personal stake in retaining the Education Minister’s post.

He had said, “Gen Z is our children. Some people attempted to mislead them. I had no personal issues then.”

The BJP leader said around two crore children are born in India every year, and that the aspirations of the younger generation would be crucial to the country’s ambition of becoming a “Vishwa Guru”.

IANS